I can’t figure out Mitt Romney, though I think I’m hardly alone in that sentiment. When he’s not
trashing
the president (his only clear-cut campaign initiative) he spends the
rest of the time dallying around issues that deserve serious
consideration. He’s inscrutable and you don't need to look any further
than the
list of names on his sizeable foreign policy team as evidence.
In a must-read
article this week in
Foreign Policy,
Rep. Adam Smith is smart to point out that of “Romney’s 24 special
advisors on foreign policy, 17 served in the Bush-Cheney
administration.” And yet, mixed in with that decidedly neoconservative
crowd are a number of very thoughtful and moderate voices.
Any foreign policy advisory board that seeks the counsel of Cofer
Black, Michael Hayden, Dan Senor or John Lehman, to name just a select
few, is a real cause for concern. Of that crowd, Black is the most
worrying. Cofer “the
gloves
come off” Black was one of the most brutal figures in CIA history,
heading the agency’s Counterterrorism Center at the time of the 9/11
attacks. Think Obama’s counterterrorism program is perverse? Black is
about as “dark side” as you get, an American exceptionalist in the worst
sense of the word, and perhaps the most vocal advocate for
extraordinary renditions and so-called “enhanced interrogation
techniques.”
The public may have trouble with Obama’s use of armed drones, but
with Black whispering in his ear, Romney’s counterterrorism policy would
be a frightening true return to those heady, Bush-era days of CIA black
sites and waterboarding sessions.
Michael Hayden you will remember was at the helm of the National
Security Agency during the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping
and Dan Senor, one of the most right-wing pundits on Romney’s list, is a
regular contributor to Fox News. From 2003 to 2004 he was the spokesman
for the Coalition Provisional Authority and managed to paint one of the
rosiest pictures of a post-Saddam Iraq that in reality was rapidly
descending into chaos (thanks, in large part, to the incompetence of the
CPA itself).
Former Secretary of the Navy, under Reagan, John Lehman fits in well
with the above crowd, though he may be the principal neoconservative
behind Mitt Romney’s
belief that the greatest strategic threat to the United States at the present time is…
Russia.
But the list has some respected moderates, too. Paula Dobriansky is
one of the most thoughtful foreign policy experts in the business and
has had an impressive career at the State Department. As the
Undersecretary for Democracy and Global Affairs, she was a staunch
defender of human rights and has been a vocal advocate in the campaign
to combat climate change.
Her colleague, Mitchell Reiss, is no less distinguished; serving as
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department under Colin Powell
and playing an integral role in the Northern Ireland peace process as a
special envoy during the Bush Administration. Robert Kagan, while a
leading neoconservative, and among the most vocal of the American
exceptionalist crowd, is a thoughtful writer and respected by both
Democrats and Republicans alike. His must-read
piece in
The New Republic on the myth of American decline is said to have influenced Obama’s State of the Union speech earlier this year.
One wonders then who on this list has Romney’s ear? Between his hawkish stance toward Russia or his
belligerence
toward Iran it would seem that there’s little room for moderates at the
Romney foreign policy table. Even the list of countries Romney’s slated
to visit in the next few weeks- Great Britain, Israel, Germany and
Poland- looks like an itinerary “25 years out of date,” to
quote
the ever-clever Laura Rozen. It is further evidence that the inner
circle is populated by old, right wing, Cold War warriors, which is as
frightening as having no particular foreign policy experience or stance
at all.
I would be far more comforted if that itinerary included a stop in
India or South Korea, even China. Don’t we want a presidential candidate
who at least appears vaguely aware of the geopolitical realities
America is facing? Why isn’t Afghanistan on the list? In the
words of Colin Powell, “C’mon Mitt, think!”
With just five months left before the election, Romney’s foreign
policy “agenda” remains nebulous and thoroughly perplexing. There is
just enough evidence, however, that when this agenda does in fact take
shape, it will be alarmingly outdated.
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