At some point, every presidential candidate is bound to take a
trip abroad to advertise his foreign policy credentials. Because
most candidates don’t want to be accused of criticizing his
opponent’s foreign policy abroad, the trips are usually little more
than carefully staged photo ops.
Four years ago, during his “foreign policy” trip, Barack Obama
donned a skullcap and pushed a written prayer into a nook in the
Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. He hasn’t been back to Israel since, and
his enmity toward our only Middle Eastern ally has been
demonstrated so often, there is no room here to rehash the
evidence.
Mitt Romney’s trip this week was supposed to follow the normal
script. Off to London first for the opening of the Olympics, then
to Israel and last to Poland, the trip was planned to hit the
headlines and Obama’s vulnerabilities. The U.K. is a strong ally,
Israel is another (and of greater domestic political importance),
and Poland is another that — until Obama came along — held a
special regard for us. Poland practically worships Ronald Reagan
for his role in winning the Cold War and embracing Poland’s
struggle against Soviet oppression. And many Polish-Americans —
who may comprise the swing vote in several states — are worried
about Obama’s disregard of Poland’s defense.
Britain, as one wag wrote a few days ago, is an easy date for
American pols. All a guy has to do is say something nice about the
Queen or Churchill, josh them about the lousy weather and say
something warm and serious about the “special relationship.” At
that point, the Brits conclude that the American candidate is
perhaps too unlettered or too much of a cowboy, but all in all a
good chap. Then everyone smiles as the candidate climbs back on the
aircraft to go to the next stop.
Unfortunately for Romney, his London trip was more reminiscent
of Monday Night Football’s “C’mon, man” segment. You know the one:
part of the halftime show with a half dozen video clips of players,
refs or coaches screwing up big plays to Chris Berman’s cry of
“c’mon, man.” Some reporter asked Romney whether Britain was ready
for the Olympics to start. Instead of saying, “everything looks
smashing,” Romney said, “You know, it’s hard to know just how well
it will turn out. There are a few things that were disconcerting.
The stories about the private security firm not having enough
people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs
officials … that obviously is not something which is
encouraging.”
That peeved Brit PM David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson
who both made snide responses and launched Romney into two days of
damage control. Romney’s unforced error is inexplicable. But it
will be forgotten quickly after Romney’s superb speech yesterday in
Jerusalem.
Romney arrived in Israel about two weeks after Obama’s National
Security Advisor Tom Donilon reportedly went there to advise
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu privately about America’s contingency
plans for Iran if the economic sanctions didn’t succeed in stopping
Iran’s nuclear weapons program. (The Israeli government denied that
report.)
The Israelis had no reason to believe anything Donilon told
them. Obama has done and continues to do everything in his power to
prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Though Obama has given the
appearance of going along with congressionally authored economic
sanctions against Iran, he has defanged the Iran sanctions,
granting most of Iran’s trading partners in Europe and the Far East
exemptions from them. When the Iranians revolted against the Tehran
regime in 2009, Obama did nothing to help them. He will never use
military power to prevent Iran’s achieving its nuclear weapons
ambitions, and everyone — especially the Israelis — knows
that.
In that context, Romney has given two excellent foreign policy
speeches. The first, before the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention
on July 24, and then in Jerusalem yesterday.
In his VFW speech, Romney labeled Iran as the greatest national
security threat we face. And he said, “The President’s policies
have made it harder to recover from the deepest recession in
seventy years… exposed the military to cuts that no one can
justify… compromised our national-security secrets… and in dealings
with other nations, given trust where it is not earned, insult
where it is not deserved, and apology where it is not due.”
Introduced by the mayor of Jerusalem, Romney began by
emphasizing that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
Romney again hit Iran hard. Speaking of Iran’s threats to wipe
Israel off the map, he reminded the crowd of the late Menachem
Begin’s words that when a nation threatens Israel it should be
taken at its word and said that preventing Iran from obtaining
nuclear weapons should be America’s highest national security
priority. He said that we must not delude ourselves into believing
that a nuclear-armed Iran can be contained, and that it is right
for Israel to defend itself and for America to stand with Israel
when it does so.
Romney’s speech will be criticized as an embrace of
neoconservatism, but it was not that at all. When he said, “We have
a duty to speed and to shape history” he was not calling for the
imposition of democracy in the Middle East. He was saying, clearly,
that Israeli democracy had to be defended against the growing
threats that surround it. He called upon the international
community to pressure Egypt’s new Islamist government to honor the
Israeli-Egyptian peace accords negotiated by Anwar Sadat.
Importantly, he said that the US-Israeli alliance was not only a
strategic one, but also a force for good in the world.
Romney’s performance in Israel was a superb defense of freedom
and American principles. It set the stage for his visit to
Poland.
The Poles, like the Brits, are an easy date for Romney, but not
for our current president. Poland was promised a ground-based
missile defense system by George W. Bush to defend it against
Iranian — and implicitly Russian — missile attack. Obama reneged
on that promise and instead promised a sea-based system, which our
navy lacks sufficient missile ships to provide.
In his VFW speech, Romney previewed what he should say in
Poland. Referring to the missile defense issue, he told the VFW
that Obama’s policy toward Eastern Europe “…began with the sudden
abandonment of friends in Poland and the Czech Republic. They had
courageously agreed to provide sites for our antimissile systems,
only to be told, at the last hour, that the agreement was off,”
Romney said. “As part of the so-called reset in policy, missile
defenses were sacrificed as a unilateral concession to the Russian
government,” Romney added. “If that gesture was designed to inspire
good will from Russia, it clearly missed the mark.”
Romney can hit as big a home run in Poland as he did in Israel
with a few simple acts. He should visit the statue of Ronald Reagan
in Warsaw and there quote the words of Lech Walesa at the statue’s
dedication in 2011. Walesa said, “I wonder whether today’s Poland,
Europe and world could look the same without President Reagan. As a
participant in those events, I must say that it’s
inconceivable.”
Romney needn’t promise, today, that Bush’s promise will be kept.
He should save that for a speech at home. He can, and should,
repeat the theme he followed in the VFW speech and in Israel.
America will defend the freedom of its allies when they are
threatened, he should say, and Poland’s freedom is as important to
America now as when Ronald Reagan fought for it by standing with
Walesa.
If Romney does these things, he will come home from the trip a
winner. In Israel, and in Poland, he will have demonstrated a
strength that hasn’t been evident before. When he gets back, he’ll
have to face the economic crisis, liberal calls for more gun
control, and everything else that will come up in the campaign. But
he will be better able to do so for having demonstrated his
understanding that the world is a dangerous place and that America
— and Israel, Poland, England, and our other allies — can pursue
our mutual duty to speed and shape history in the cause of
freedom.
