Romney then added, however, that his gripe with Obama is that he “actually said on Arabic TV that America has dictated to other nations.”

“Look, America has not dictated to other nations,” said Romney. “We have freed other nations from dictators. We have nothing to apologize for in terms of America’s great contribution to the world. . . .” ~The Note

This is unusually ignorant even by the standards of Romney’s remarks on foreign policy. First, we need to go back to the Al Arabiya interview and find exactly what Obama said. It’s quite easy, as it is one of the first things he said in the interview. Obama made his remarks in the context of discussing his dispatch of George Mitchell as his special envoy on Israel and Palestine:

And so what I told him [Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues — and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen. He’s going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.

Remember that Obama said this back in January 2009 before there was any discussion of settlements. At that time, Obama was saying that he did not want to dictate terms or dictate a settlement to Israelis and Palestinians. This is a pretty conventional position, and it is an argument that Republicans used against Obama later when he did start trying to pressure Israel on settlements. Viewing the remarks in the context of the interview, we see that Obama was effectively endorsing a continuation of the status quo, which works to perpetuate current Israeli policy. Romney wants the audience to believe that Obama went on an Arabic-language channel and bad-mouthed the United States, when in reality what Obama did was reiterate a standard position that says America should not dictate terms to Israel. This is a position that Romney himself would presumably endorse. It is things like this that confirm my deep dislike for Romney and his habitual dishonesty.

Added to his dishonest recounting of what Obama said is the self-righteous nationalist nonsense that is at the heart of his critique of Obama’s foreign policy. America has never dictated to other nations? We dictate to other nations all the time. As far as nationalists are concerned, we only do it for the most noble ideals and with the purest of intentions, but I simply don’t understand why a nationalist would deny that America dictates to other nations. That is an integral part of being a superpower and would-be enforcer of Pax Americana. Of course, this dictating is often done in the guise of speaking on behalf of “the international community” when most of the “community” wants nothing to do with Washington’s objectives. At other times, we dictate to other nations on our own with a “coalition of the willing” in tow. I would have thought that this dictating to other nations was what made hegemonists and nationalists happy. Isn’t it the supposed unwillingness of Obama to take a sufficiently hard line against rival and authoritarian states that irritates his hawkish critics so much?

When the title and subject of Romney’s new book were first announced, I have to admit that I was a bit confused. As David Bernstein wrote last month in his review of the book, Romney has no national security or foreign policy experience to speak of, but for some reason he has chosen to make a significant part of his critique of the current administration in his book center on these issues. This was something that didn’t make sense when I first read about the book, and it makes even less sense now.

Despite the endless inane attacks from the GOP, most of the public approves of Obama’s handling of foreign policy and a plurality approves of his handling of various national security issues. This is the wrong place for Republicans attack him. It is clearly on fiscal and economic policy where they may be able to gain a significant advantage, and this is the kind of policy argument for which Romney is well-suited. Instead he wastes his time and makes a fool of himself discussing a subject he doesn’t seem to understand very well.