Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign studiously avoids calls for war with the Islamic Republic. While some advisers have been hawkish on Iran in the past, only John Bolton has called for an attack since the campaign got underway. Instead, on a recent press call, Romney adviser Dan Senor went out [...]]]> via Think Progress

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign studiously avoids calls for war with the Islamic Republic. While some advisers have been hawkish on Iran in the past, only John Bolton has called for an attack since the campaign got underway. Instead, on a recent press call, Romney adviser Dan Senor went out of his way to twice state that he was “not suggesting the military option should be used” (even as he admonished the Obama administration for openly discussing potential consequences of an attack).

In an interview with journalist Barbara Slavin published yesterday on Al-Monitor, another top Romney adviser made abundantly clear that there are very few differences between Romney’s Iran policy and President Obama’s.

Ambassador Richard Williamson told Slavin that “President Romney will seek a negotiated settlement,” which incidentally the Obama administration also considers the “best and most permanent way” to end the crisis over Iran’s nuclear program. Williamson even commented on the possible costs and consequences of attacking Iran, noting, as myriad others have, that an attack would only delay — not stop — a potential Iranian nuclear weapon:

SLAVIN: You’ve talked about a credible threat of military force yet much, if not all, of Israel’s intelligence and defense establishment oppose a strike, saying that would push Iran to develop nuclear weapons.

WILLIAMSON: You can degrade their quest for nuclear breakout. It would be expensive, it would be costly; it’s something we should avoid if possible but it’s not something we should take off the table. If you do, then you will have no chance to get a negotiated settlement.

Because he views a potential Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to the security of the U.S., its allies in the region and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, Obama’s vowed again and again to keep all options “on the table.”

That leaves Williamson’s endorsement of a “zero enrichment” policy — lining up with hawkish Member of Congress declaring that Iran cannot be allowed to maintain any domestic uranium enrichment — as the main difference. Officially, that’s U.S. policy under the Obama administration, though officials have hinted a compromise might be possible to strike a deal. Perhaps that’s because domestic enrichment, as reiterated yesterday, is the firmest of Iranian demands in negotiations.

The hardest of the hard-line neoconservatives ramped up a campaign for war with Iran today, putting them at odds with not just Obama but Romney as well. Perhaps that’s why Romney tends to avoid focusing on foreign policy issues. As Vice President Joe Biden recently said, “Governor Romney has called for what he calls a ‘very different policy’ on Iran. But for the life of me it’s hard to understand what the governor means by a very different policy.”

In the late 1940s, Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously said that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” In recent years, adherence to the axiom has fallen by the wayside. In 2005, President Clinton criticized the sitting Bush administration in a Dubai speech. And President Obama delivered a 2008 speech to [...]]]> via Think Progress

In the late 1940s, Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously said that “politics stops at the water’s edge.” In recent years, adherence to the axiom has fallen by the wayside. In 2005, President Clinton criticized the sitting Bush administration in a Dubai speech. And President Obama delivered a 2008 speech to cheering throngs in Berlin during a presidential race. But Obama’s Berlin speech focused on policy issues and avoided criticizing his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain (AZ) or the waning Bush administration.

This weekend, however, the Romney campaign took politics overseas in a much more explicit fashion: dispatching two advisers to foreign publications amid an established one-on-one presidential race to heavily criticize President Obama by name and build their case that Mitt Romney should be president.

In one of the salvos against President Obama, Romney economic adviser Glenn Hubbard took to the pages of the German business magazine Handelsblatt to sharply criticize the administration’s stance on the European fiscal crisis. According to a translated portions of the article in the New York Times, Hubbard lambasted Obama’s “ignorance of the causes of the crisis and of a growth trend in the future,” calling the president “unwise.” After taking the president to task by name, Hubbard contrasted him with Romney:

Mitt Romney, Obama’s Republican opponent, understands this very well and advises a gradual fiscal consolidation for the U.S.: structural reform to stimulate growth.

According to the Times, the Obama campaign already took a shot at Hubbard’s op-ed:

In a foreign news outlet, Governor Romney’s top economic adviser both discouraged essential steps that need to be taken to promote economic recovery and attempted to undermine America’s foreign policy abroad.

The second overseas assault on President Obama came from Romney foreign policy adviser Amb. Richard Williamson. Speaking to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Williamson zeroed in on Obama’s Iran and Israel policies. “Under Barack Obama, our national security capabilities have decreased,” he said, blasting “President Obama’s feckless and ineffective leadership.” He went on:

What the Governor has tried to make clear is that one of the unfortunate results of the Obama foreign policy is our friends and allies, including Great Britain, Israel and others, have not had their interests taken into account, have not been consulted closely, and there isn’t a constructive working relationship.

The claims are baseless. Indeed, Romney and his advisers are the ones who last month publicly trashed Great Britain, its leaders, and other European allies. And Williamson’s claim that “there isn’t a constructive working relationship” with Israel belie a reality where Israeli leaders like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu note that Obama “rightly said that our security cooperation is unprecedented,” and Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Obama is an “extremely strong supporter of Israel in regard to its security” and that no one should “raise any question mark about the devotion of this president to the security of Israel.”

With direct political attacks being waged overseas, the 1940s and Vandenberg are clearly in the rearview. But perhaps at least the Romney campaign could do America — and the world — a favor by maintaining a modicum of honesty in their attacks on Obama launched from overseas.

Photo: Newscom