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“This Is About Shia and Sunni!”: Romney’s Ignorant 2007 Statement on Jihadism Looks Even Worse Now Than It Did Then

I know David French is a zealous Romneyite, but this is too much: Mitt’s 2007 response outlining the jihadist effort to collapse moderate governments and replace them with a caliphate seems considerably less alarmist [bold mine-DL] and considerably more prescient as Islamists rule Tunisia, the al-Qaeda flag flies in Tripoli, and the Muslim Brotherhood dominates […]

I know David French is a zealous Romneyite, but this is too much:

Mitt’s 2007 response outlining the jihadist effort to collapse moderate governments and replace them with a caliphate seems considerably less alarmist [bold mine-DL] and considerably more prescient as Islamists rule Tunisia, the al-Qaeda flag flies in Tripoli, and the Muslim Brotherhood dominates Egypt.

French makes the exact same mistake Romney made in 2007 by indiscriminately lumping together violent jihadist groups with all other Islamist groups and conflating all Islamist groups of various stripes. French thinks that Romney’s fears of an international jihadist-established caliphate are now less alarmist because some Islamist parties are benefiting greatly from recent national elections. He seems to think that Romney’s error from five years ago is something to celebrate because Islamists have benefited from the fall of authoritarian rulers whose overthrow Romney supported in each instance.

Even if the falls of Ben Ali, Mubarak, and Gaddafi vindicated what Romney said in 2007 (and they don’t), that would mean that Romney was effectively supporting the results of the “jihadist effort.” There is no way that French can spin this to Romney’s advantage. That 2007 quote is one of the earliest pieces of evidence that Romney had no idea what he was talking about on foreign policy then or later, and yet his defenders think that it helps him to remind everyone how wrong and uninformed he was (and probably still is) on this question.

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