The 2012 Presidential Candidates on Foreign Policy

First of all, I applaud you for asking serious international questions that should have been asked during the debate.  The debate moderator (Bob Shieffer) lost control of the Foreign Policy debate and it turned to domestic jobs and the economy.   To give you a perspective of the extent to which the candidates discussed non-state actors during the debate, the U.N. was mention only 4 times yet jobs were mentioned 32 times.  The U.N. was the only intergovernmental organization mention during the debate.  A specific multinational corporation was not mentioned.  The candidates mentioned terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Hezbollah.

President Obama said the administration’s goal is to get Iran to abide by the U.N. resolutions that are already in place.  President Obama detailed that he has begun the process of doing so by working with the other nations in the U.N. including Russia and China to put in place sanctions against Iran that have been crippling Iran’s economy so that Iran continues to feel the pressure by the international community to comply. 

President Obama discussed how the world “needs a strong America” and that we’re “stronger now than when he came into office” because we ended the war in Iraq so we could focus on the terrorist threat in Afghanistan.  President Obama then explained that our alliances have never been stronger and we have unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation in Asia, Europe, Africa and Israel.  He then told how he has created partnerships in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan to deal with extremism and how he has engaged these governments in reforms to stop government corruption, give women rights, and to establish a “free market system that works”.  “Al-Qaida is much weaker than it was when I came into office, and they don't have the same capacities to attack the U.S. homeland and our allies as they did four years ago.”  President Obama made it clear that the terrorist networks are a greater threat to nation security and that China is a potential partner to the U.S. in the international community.   President Obama then spoke of Hamas and the missiles they launched to attack Israel threatening the lives of many children which factored in to his decision to fund “an Iron Dome program to stop those missiles” from continuing  to attack.  President Obama ended the discussion on demobilizing terroristic groups throughout the world by giving his track record and credentials as the most credible candidate to deal with the different countries of the world.

Mr. Romney said that Russia was our biggest “geopolitical foe” because Russia battles the U.S in the U.N. and he plans to give Russia more “backbone”.  Mr. Romney also stated that he would have left 5,000 troops in Iraq.

Mr. Romney did not mention how he would give Russia more “backbone” or if he would actually send our troops back to Iraq during the debate. 

Mr. Romney first congratulated the President on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after leadership in al-Qaida then he proposed a plan to “kill” the bad guys and get the Muslim world to “reject extremism on its own” (very similar to his self-deportation plan).  His plan consisted of investing U.S. dollars into economic development, education, gender equality, and the “rule of law” in the Muslim world (he will most likely get the money to invest in the Muslim world by cutting economic development, education, and gender equality for Americans from the U.S. budget).  Mr. Romney acknowledged that Pakistan is on its way to having over 200 nuclear weapons and they have arrested the man who helped the U.S. capture bin Laden.  He stated that regardless they are our allies and if we don’t spend the money needed to protect Pakistan the Taliban will get a hold of all those weapons.  Finally Mr. Romney made some geographically false statements about Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

Mitt Romney’s foreign policy proposal is quite expensive and the U.S. taxpayers will suffer because of it.  His lack of willingness to compromise will cause World War III and military drafts.  His policies regarding Russia, Iran, and Iraq are more radical than George W. Bush’s foreign policies.  Remember back in 2007 President Bush threatened Russia with World War III and his advisor said that drafts were a possibility.  If President Obama had not been elected we would be fighting World War III right now.