{"id":20402,"date":"2012-06-20T08:50:11","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T04:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=20402"},"modified":"2012-06-20T08:50:17","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T04:50:17","slug":"romneys-middle-east-team-same-old-same-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-politics-analysis\/romneys-middle-east-team-same-old-same-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Romney’s Middle East Team: Same Old, Same Old"},"content":{"rendered":"

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THE US government may have a penchant for adventures on foreign soil and blind loyalty to Israel, but the American people generally have isolationist tendencies.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party pretty much feels the same way, offering little in a coherent foreign policy or even understanding the Arab Spring\u2019s impact on the Middle East. Other than the Republican Party\u2019s unwavering support for Israel and lip service for a two-state solution with Palestine, conservatives can offer no single Middle East foreign policy position of substance.<\/p>\n

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that just 1 percent of Americans considered foreign policy \u2014 including national security and terrorism \u2014 the most important issue in the 2012 presidential election. Republicans are taking advantage of this disinterest.<\/p>\n

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney tentatively stepped up to the plate and offered the obvious: Support Israel, consult with military commanders on the direction of the Afghanistan war, oppose Iran developing nuclear weapons and increase defense spending.<\/p>\n

As the November election draws closer Romney must flesh out these vague pronouncements. Yet Middle East leaders have much to worry about if the foreign policy team Romney assembled late last year is any indication of what\u2019s to come should he become president.<\/p>\n

Romney attempted to demonstrate a serious effort to formulate a Middle East foreign policy that protects US interests and further the cause of spreading democracy. However, all indications point to forsaking President Obama\u2019s pragmatic approach by returning to a neoconservative ideology. That didn\u2019t work out so well for the Bush II administration. And the stakes are much higher with Syria in a free fall and Egypt\u2019s elections in shambles.<\/p>\n

Romney\u2019s foreign policy team reads like a who\u2019s who from the Bush administration: Eric Edelman, Bush\u2019s Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security; Roger Zakheim, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; Mary Beth Long, once the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; Meghan O\u2019Sullivan, a Deputy National Security Adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan; and perhaps the most conservative of them all, John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

The only Arab on the team is Walid Phares, a Lebanese Christian. He writes for the ultra-conservative anti-Muslim online publications Frontpage Magazine and Family Security Matters and the right-wing newspaper Washington Times.<\/p>\n

Phares\u2019 appointment by Romney is particularly troublesome. Phares, who was involved in extremist Lebanese militia groups, has a history of claiming that jihadists are infiltrating America\u2019s mosques and educational institutions and are simply waiting to strike. He described the right-wing militia group Guardians of Cedars, with its slogan \u201cKill a Palestinian and you shall enter Heaven,\u201d as moral fighters. This is a man who has Romney\u2019s ear. Romney can no longer claim the \u201cmoderate\u201d Republican mantle, but is instead a potential president who feels that people like Phares have the bona fides to help shape US foreign policy in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Phares is only a symptom of what is wrong with the Republican Party\u2019s approach from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the current events in Syria. Romney simply adopted the Reagan-era philosophy of \u201cIsrael first, Israel always\u201d and \u201cwe don\u2019t negotiate with terrorists\u201d by refusing to engage the democratically elected Hamas.<\/p>\n

And for a presidential candidate who questions the competence of Obama\u2019s handling of Syria, Romney for now doesn\u2019t stray far from the official policy of the White House. While Obama has made it clear that he opposes military intervention, the administration remains in close contact with Syrian opposition forces to pass on information to Gulf countries gauging events on the ground and the opposition\u2019s capability against President Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n

Romney last month offered a similar approach by suggesting the US \u201cshould work with partners to arm the opposition so they can defend themselves.\u201d Is this the best Romney\u2019s foreign policy advisers can do by mimicking Obama\u2019s position? Those advisers may be playing it safe on the campaign trail, but once in the White House they may find nation building too hard to resist.<\/p>\n

Obama learned that despite his 2008 campaign rhetoric the hard truths of realpolitik push aside ideological dreams. Bush II found out the hard way and it cost thousands of lives.<\/p>\n

By trusting foreign policy issues to ideologues, Romney could very well return the US to Bush-era misadventures. When the November election heats up after the summer, Romney will have much explaining to do why a foreign policy team full of neoconservatives is the best way to engage Middle East leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROB L. WAGNER: If Mitt Romney wins the U.S. presidential election it looks like we’ll be taking a trip back in time to the reign of George W. Bush. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":20403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,692,82,60,135],"tags":[2101,24,423,513,3475,4655,18300,13446,227,18306,18321,2825,18311,8651,191,1353,121,3455,1747,1808,3460,18330,387,18302,2738,11551,2624,6973,2099],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}