Tom Ricks dissects Romney’s recent Iran op-ed:
But the stupidest line in the article might be this one: “I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must.” Dude, how are sanctions gonna work if we impose them alone? They won’t, so they must be imposed multilaterally. Which is what President Obama happens to be doing. I have to wonder who in the Romney campaign thought this article was a good idea.
It was probably the same person who thought denouncing a modest arms control treaty and showing off Romney’s misunderstanding of the relevant issues was a clever attack. I suspect it was also the same person who thought making foreign policy criticism one of the central themes of Romney’s presidential run was a bit of brilliant positioning instead of the sorry spectacle that it’s been. In other words, it was Mitt Romney’s idea.
The most punitive sanctions imposed on Iran to date have been almost entirely American and European, and the stricter the sanctions become the less international support there is for them. The latest sanctions are bound to be ineffective because there are too many states with significant economic ties to Iran that refuse to go along with the oil embargo and sanctions on Iran’s central bank. Romney’s statement about sanctions is embarrassing for him, but the lack of cooperation the U.S. has received from India, Turkey, Russia, and China, among others, is a reminder that there are limits to what we should expect from all those governments that don’t perceive Iran’s nuclear program to be nearly as important as our government does.
I read the Romney op-ed with trepidation the other day, fearing for the worst. Upon reading it, however, I came away much relieved, for he, like the new Obama, appears to draw the red line at Iran acquiring nuclear bombs. In two different places in his op-ed, he makes the following statements:
“Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must.”
“We can’t afford to wait much longer, and we certainly can’t afford to wait through four more years of an Obama administration. By then it will be far too late. If the Iranians are permitted to get the bomb, the consequences will be as uncontrollable as they are horrendous.”
Thus, Romney’s red line seems to match Obama’s. As I have pointed out numerous times, Obama said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune back in 2004 that missile strikes against Iran might be necessary to force it to halt its nuclear enrichment program if economic sanctions didn’t succeed. Thus, I find it ironic that Obama would sound off against his Republican critics: ” “When I see the casualness with which some of these folks talk about war, I’m reminded of the costs involved in war,” he said, adding: “This is not a game. And there’s nothing casual about it.” There would be consequences for both Israel and America, he cautioned, “if action is taken prematurely.” “When I visit Walter Reed, when I’ve signed letters to families,” he said, “whose loved ones have not come home, I am reminded that there is a cost.” And, he noted dryly, “Typically, it’s not the folks who are popping off who pay the price.”
It’s amazing how much a man can grow from age 43 to age 51. It must be that Nobel Peace Prize that did it. My skeptical side, however, observes that Obama was careful to say “if action is taken prematurely.” In other words, before Obama’s reelection is assured. After his possible reelection, there are always the examples of those great Democratic predecessors, Woodrow Wilson and LBJ, who won reelection either by campaigning on the platform that “he kept us out of war” or succeeded in painting his rival as a crazy warmonger, and then, after their subsequent inaugurations got the U.S. involved in two of the more senseless 20th century wars, WWI and Vietnam.
At least with Romney, we know there is nothing he can do until he assumes the office of President. So, in a certain way, we have much less to fear from Romney at this point than we do with Obama. Once he becomes President, I have more confidence that he will reassess his truculent foreign policy positions articulate during the 2012 campaign. It is worth keeping in mind that the nomination is not yet locked down, and he just beat Santorum in Ohio by 1%.