Romney’s Well-Rehearsed Case Against Obama and the Russians

Time Swampland

By Michael Crowley | @CrowleyTIME | March 27, 2012

For months now, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has overwhelmingly focused on the economy.  But as he geared up his candidacy a couple of years ago, Romney opened with an argument heavy on foreign policy. In March 2010, for instance, he published No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, a campaign stage-setter largely based on the idea that Barack Obama was allowing America to slip into decline while bowing and caving to global rivals like China, Russia and Iran. It wasn’t until the recovery sputtered and Obama scored a string of foreign policy successes that Romney adopted a monomaniacal focus on the jobs picture.

But some Republicans remain convinced that they can score points against Obama on foreign policy. And now, in the wake of Obama’s open-mic comment to Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he can show “more flexibility” on missile defense and other issues after the November election, Romney seems to be reviving his earlier line of attack. Romney pounced on the comment Monday, calling it “an alarming and troubling development” that suggests Obama is “not telling us what he’s intending to do” on various key foreign policy matters. Later in the day he delivered a surprisingly harsh assessment of Russia as “without question our number one geopolitical foe,” a perhaps defensible position when you consider questions like U.N. Security Council vetoes, but still a tough one to square with his past remarks about Iran. (For example: “Right now, the greatest danger that America faces and the world faces is a nuclear Iran.”)

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Mitt Romney: Russia Is ‘Our Number One Geopolitical Foe’

The Huffington Post | By Luke Johnson
Posted: 03/26/2012  5:21 pm Updated: 03/26/2012  6:16 pm

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney called Russia “without question our number one geopolitical foe” Monday on CNN.

Romney’s comments came in the context of President Barack Obama’s “hot mic” moment with Russian President Dimitri Medvedev Monday after a meeting in Seoul. Obama was heard telling Medvedev he would have “more flexibility” on missile defense after the presidential election.

“This is without question our number one geopolitical foe, they fight for every cause for the world’s worst actors. The idea that he has more flexibility in mind for Russia is very, very troubling indeed,” Romney said.

Wolf Blitzer asked if he thought Russia was a bigger foe than Iran, China or North Korea.

“I’m saying in terms of a geopolitical opponent, the nation which lines up with the world’s worst actors,” said Romney. “Of course the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran and a nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.”

“But when these terrible actors pursue their course in the world and we go to the United Nations looking for ways to stop them; when [Syrian President Bashir al-] Assad for instance is murdering his own people we go to the United Nations and who is it that always stands up with the world’s worst actors, it’s always Russia, typically with China alongside,” he continued. “And so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council … and is of course is a massive nuclear power, Russia is the geopolitical foe.”

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