"Mitt Romney's Bad Trip:" The Guardian Warns Us of Risks of Mitt's International Policy Shortcomings

[ProSense]

"Mitt Romney's Bad Trip:" The Guardian Warns Us of Risks of Mitt's International Policy Shortcomings

by HoundDog

While Mitt Romney's numerous international gaffes are gaining much attention, the Guardian warns us that Romney's policy declarations may be even more disconcerting in their potential for negative global consequences, and more compelling evidence he is not of the right calibre to be leader of the free world. Please give a quick read to Mitt Romney's Bad Trip, which makes me wonder why we, and the media, are not giving as much attention to his policy pronouncements, as we are to his gaffes. Someone here joked a few weeks ago, that Romney seemed to be pulling this gaffes to distract us from how much worse many of his policies would be.

This editorial notes that Mitt Romney is such a "slippery character," it is difficult to know which of his pronouncement he would actually try to implement, but they remind us of several which could be problematic.

Would he deliberately provoke Vladimir Putin, a leader who, apart from being naturally bellicose, thinks that standing up to the United States helps maintain his popularity at home? And would he carry out his threat to "review" the strategic arms limitation treaty? That would be a deeply counter-productive course, but it is the one that Romney has said he would follow.

Would he confront China on currency, trade and the South China Sea, perhaps adding fuel to the fire by supplying Taiwan with new weapons? That would be equally stupid, yet Romney has made statements that indicate he might do so.

Would he impose additional sanctions on Iran and take his tough line on Tehran to the point of war, as John Bolton, one of his foreign policy advisers, has come close to saying might be necessary? An attack on Iran would have incalculable consequences, but one thing would be certain: most of them would be bad, or worse than bad.

Would he discard Obama's timetable for troop withdrawals in Afghanistan, as he has said he might do after review, or even insist on keeping troops in Iraq ? That would be to fly in the face of the consensus that it is time both countries made their own way, for good or ill, in the wake of American intervention.

We are already seeing a backlash from Arab leaders to declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and support for a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Iran.

In Poland, perhaps, we will learn if Romney has figured out, yet, that Russia, is no longer the Soviet Union, and the many of the former Eastern Bloc countries are now in the Eurozone.

Mitt Romney needs to submit to vigorous questioning from international and domestic press, on these major confusions, and/or radical changes he seems to propose to our foreign policy. The idea that he can stonewall these questions, the same way he is stonewalling questions about his tax returns, Bain finances, and other questions is unacceptable.

I have to keep this short, today, as I am getting ready for my son to visit. I hope we can raise the level of attention, and list of concrete policy issues, which Mitt Romney needs to clarify, or improve to dispel the widely-held view that he is a "not-ready-for-prime-time-player."

Stop stonewalling Romney! If you want to be President of the United States answer press questions, and release your tax returns to 1999.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/07/30/1114981/--Mitt-Romney-s-Bad-Trip-The-Guardian-Warns-Us-of-Risks-of-Mitt-s-International-Policy-Shortcomings

[SunsetDreams]

1. Nice K&R