There is absolutely nothing that unites these organizations in any programmatic manner except Romney’s ignorance, and the expansion of ignorance is insufficient to topple an American superpower. ~Spencer Ackerman

Via Patrick Appel

As Ackerman knows quite well, Romney’s ignorance on this point has not lessened since he was running for the nomination last time. This is what I said about Romney’s foreign policy views almost three years ago:

Suffice it to say that a man who rattles off the two major sects of Islam in a list with various other Islamic groups, none of which has anything to do with the other, is profoundly unfit to head the executive branch in time of war with jihadis or indeed at any time. Someone who can look at the sectarian warfare in Iraq (or, say, Lebanon) and talk about how ”they” have all “come together” against “us” is hopelessly confused about the international scene. Someone who cannot demonstrate even the most basic understanding of the fissures and divisions in the Islamic world and the different political organisations within that world should not even be a party to the debate, much less should he be considered a viable “top-tier” candidate for a major party’s nomination.

I don’t revisit all of this just to attack Romney for sport, as entertaining as this can be, but to emphasize the real dangers that come from such profound misunderstanding of America’s jihadist enemies, their relative strength and the rivalries that exist among jihadist groups. Adopting an approach that conflates discrete and significantly different groups into a single force that the U.S. is supposed to combat will blind us to the political realities of the Near East and South Asia. As I said in response to Romney’s conflation of groups three years ago:

Rather than exploiting the cleavages that exist between different kinds of Muslims and different groups of jihadis, as a savvy George Kennan-like foreign policy thinker might propose, the insane plan of leading Republican candidates and the party leadership is to keep reinforcing the image of a monolithic, unified “worldwide jihadist effort.” The net result of this thinking will be that America will have that many more implacable enemies to fight and we will have missed that many more opportunities to turn jihadi against jihadi and use natural Baathist hostility to the same to our advantage. Rather than playing on national and sectarian divisions and exploiting opposition between relatively secular Muslims and their religious counterparts, talk of a “worldwide jihadist effort” helps to push these groups into collaboration where none existed before.

Unfortunately, we cannot simply dismiss Romney’s errors in the last campaign as the temporary product of a candidate trying to position himself as a foreign policy hawk in the tail end of the Bush era. His errors have persisted and his arguments have not changed in the slightest. His analysis was laughable three years ago, and it is even more so today.

Ackerman also draws attention to Romney’s bizarre view on how to conduct U.S. diplomacy, which seems to boil down to having one diplomatic attache for each regional command around the world. Ackerman writes:

Such an individual would “encourage people and politicians to adopt and abide by the principles of liberal democracy,” something that “would be ideal if other allied nations created similar regional positions, and if we coordinated our efforts with theirs.” That’s it for diplomacy, and he doesn’t have an agenda for global development. Why the world will simply do what America says simply because America says it is something Romney never bothers to consider. High school students at model U.N. conferences have proposed less ludicrous ideas.

Then again, those high school students have probably given the subject more thought. That is what I find most inexplicable about Romney’s decision to spend any time at all trying to fill in gaps in his record on foreign policy that he and everyone else know are there. He seems to think that making enough of the conventional noises on the right issues will persuade doubters and fence-sitters that he really does know what he’s talking about. As a political matter, this is folly. Bush was and remained famously clueless and incurious on foreign policy, but during the 2000 campaign he did not waste time trying to match Gore on national security and foreign policy credentials. He covered his glaring weaknesses by playing to the strengths that he did have. Romney seems to be intent on doing the opposite.

Ackerman also notes that the war in Afghanistan receives no mention in the book. As Romney still cannot make up his mind whether Obama has handled Afghanistan well or poorly, it is no surprise that he has not yet figured out how to demonize Obama for doing something that was promised and which Romney would normally support.

P.S. Faithful Romneyite Kathryn-Jean Lopez says of Romney’s book tour: “If you had any doubts about who he is, you’re seeing the real thing now.” Yes, yes, we are.