Romney Will Probably Be Defeated-- But Because Of Himself, Not Jason Clausen, Nor Even His Grotesque Formulations On Foreign Policy, His Weakest Suit

Jason Clausen, the Iowa man in a new Mitt Romney ad, has a long rap sheet featuring a stint in jail for an assault on a peace officer. Like almost all Romney supporters, he's a substance abuser. But that isn't what makes Romney vulnerable to a loss that will rival Barry Goldwater's in it's completeness. Oh, sure, Romney will win most of the Old Confederacy and the Mormon states... but not much else.

I don't spend a lot of time reading the American Conservative and I bet you don't either. But Dan Larison had a column-- really just a paragraph-long column with a delusional Republican hack's quote to make fun of-- yesterday that is worth taking a look at. Larison, unlike many conservatives already understands why Americans have a visceral dislike, if not hatred, for Romney. And it's not because he's a Mormon or because he's a multimillionaire who cheats on his taxes.

Doug Bandow’s article on Romney and foreign policy is another reminder that substance is something that Romney does not have on his side. Fortunately for him, elections aren’t decided by a candidate’s grasp of policy, foreign or domestic. Elections are typically decided by voters’ economic circumstances. This is the main reason that Romney has any chance of winning. He isn’t “well-positioned” at all. Romney is a pro-bailout corporatist with a reputation for phoniness and dishonesty. He embodies everything that people claim not to like about how the country is being governed, and he seems to be out of his depth on issues of national security. He’s a hybrid of the worst traits of Nixon and Dukakis.

As for the Bandow [from Cato] article, in the same right-wing publication, it's just devastating to Romney already, at least for anyone who would like to have him viewed as a serious leader in the foreign policy world. Romney is nothing but a clawing careerist clown-- even to serious-minded Republicans. The only thing that recommends him to conservatives is his red banner. Other than that, they're probably better off with Obama!

In fact, a recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that Americans prefer Barack Obama to Mitt Romney on international issues by 53 percent to 36 percent. Republican apparatchiks Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie nevertheless claim, “the president is strikingly vulnerable in this area,” but so far Romney is convincing only as a blowhard with a know-nothing foreign policy. Noted Jacob Heilbrunn of the National Interest, the GOP is “returning to a prescription that led to trillion-dollar wars in the Middle East that the public loathes.”

Romney’s overall theme is American exceptionalism and greatness, slogans that win public applause but offer no guidance for a bankrupt superpower that has squandered its international credibility. “This century must be an American century,” Romney proclaimed. “In an American century, America leads the free world and the free world leads the entire world.” He has chosen a mix of advisers, including the usual neocons and uber-hawks-- Robert Kagan, Eliot Cohen, Jim Talent, Walid Phares, Kim Holmes, and Daniel Senor, for instance-- that gives little reason for comfort. Their involvement suggests Romney’s general commitment to an imperial foreign policy and force structure.

Romney is no fool, but he has never demonstrated much interest in international affairs. He brings to mind George W. Bush, who appeared to be largely ignorant of the nations he was invading. Romney may be temperamentally less likely to combine recklessness with hubris, but he would have just as strong an incentive to use foreign aggression to win conservative acquiescence to domestic compromise. This tactic worked well for Bush, whose spendthrift policies received surprisingly little criticism on the right from activists busy defending his war-happy foreign policy.


...If Mitt Romney really believes that the world today is so much more dangerous than during the Cold War, he should spell out the threat. He calls Islamic fundamentalism, the Arab Spring, the impact of failed states, the anti-American regimes of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, rising China, and resurgent Russia “powerful forces.”  It’s actually a pitiful list-- Islamic terrorists have been weakened and don’t pose an existential threat, the Arab Spring threatens instability with little impact on America, it is easier to strike terrorists in failed states than in nominal allies like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, one nuclear-armed submarine could vaporize all four hostile states, and Russia’s modest “resurgence” may threaten Georgia but not Europe or America. Only China deserves to be called “powerful,” but it remains a developing country surrounded by potential enemies with a military far behind that of the U.S.

In fact, the greatest danger to America is the blowback that results from promiscuous intervention in conflicts not our own. Romney imagines a massive bootstrap operation: he wants a big military to engage in social engineering abroad which would require an even larger military to handle the violence and chaos that would result from his failed attempts at social engineering. Better not to start this vicious cycle.

America faces international challenges but nevertheless enjoys unparalleled dominance. U.S. power is buttressed by the fact that Washington is allied with every industrialized nation except China and Russia. America shares significant interests with India, the second major emerging power; is seen as a counterweight by a gaggle of Asian states worried about Chinese expansion; remains the dominant player in Latin America; and is closely linked to most of the Middle East’s most important countries, such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq. If Mitt Romney really believes that America is at greater risk today than during the Cold War, he is not qualified to be president.

In this world the U.S. need not confront every threat, subsidize every ally, rebuild every failed state, and resolve every problem. Being a superpower means having many interests but few vital ones warranting war. Being a bankrupt superpower means exhibiting judgment and exercising discretion.

President Barack Obama has been a disappointment, amounting in foreign policy to George W. Bush-lite. But Mitt Romney sounds even worse. His rhetoric suggests a return to the worst of the Bush administration. The 2012 election likely will be decided on economics, but foreign policy will prove to be equally important in the long-term. America can ill afford another know-nothing president.