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Mitt Romney: bad trip
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Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Jul 30, 2012 10:48am |
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| Category | Editorial |
| Media | Newspaper - Guardian |
| News Date | Sunday, July 29, 2012 10:50:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Romney's words abroad are really aimed at Americans at home, but the trip nevertheless prompts consideration of what kind of president he would be for the world
Romney is such a slippery character that it is hard to know which of his announced foreign policies, if any, would actually be put into practice were he to become president.
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. |
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