In final debate, fierce battle over foreign policy
Updated: 12:26 a.m. ET
In the third and final debate before the presidential election, President Obama and Mitt Romney exchanged harsh words Monday over how to best guide the nation's foreign policy, attacking each other on experience and vision while attempting to delineate their own differences on issues like Iran and Syria.
Obama to Romney: The 1980's are calling to ask for their foreign policy back
In the 90-minute debate at Florida's Lynn University, Mr. Obama was swift to cast Romney as inexperienced and incoherent on foreign policy, lambasting his ideas as "wrong and reckless" within minutes of the debate's kick-off, and taking every possible opportunity to stress the areas in which Romney "agrees" with his policies.
Combating criticism over his actions in Iran, Syria, and across the Middle East, Mr. Obama painted a stark contrast between the "strong, steady leadership" he said he offered, versus what he cast as Romney's "wrong and reckless leadership that is all over the map."
"Every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong," the president argued, seizing on his opponent's past positions on Iraq and Afghanistan. "You said that we should still have troops in Iraq to this day. You indicated that we shouldn't be passing nuclear treaties with Russia despite the fact that 71 senators, Democrats and Republicans, voted for it. You said that, first, we should not have a timeline in Afghanistan. Then you said we should. Now you say maybe or it depends, which means not only were you wrong, but you were also confusing in sending mixed messages both to our troops and our allies."
Obama: Military has fewer horses and bayonets
Underscoring his rival's dearth of experience in the foreign policy arena, Mr. Obama sought to cast doubt on Romney's understanding of basic foreign policy principles -- including "how our military works" -- and cast his ideas as regressive and outdated. "The 1980s, they're now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War's been over for 20 years," he said at one point.
"I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works," he said, addressing the former Massachusetts governor's comments about impending cuts to the defense budget. "You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."
"The question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships," he added.
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Romney, striking a considerably less hawkish tone than in past appearances, cast Mr. Obama's leadership abroad as weak and ineffective, and accused him of using personal attacks to divert from the substantive issues at hand.
"Attacking me is not an agenda. Attacking me is not talking about how we're going to deal with the challenges that exist in the Middle East, and take advantage of the opportunity there, and stem the tide of this violence," Romney said.
Opting not to press the president over the timeline with which his administration responded to recent attacks in Libya, which has been a source of confusion and controversy over the last several weeks, Romney instead elected to launch a broader attack on Mr. Obama's vision for the Middle East and his response to the so-called Arab Spring.
"We can't kill our way out of this mess," Romney said, before calling for a "comprehensive and robust strategy" to help "the world of Islam and other parts of the world reject this radical violent extremism."
"With the Arab Spring, came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, and opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life, and in economic life in the Middle East," Romney said. "But instead, we've seen in nation after nation, a number of disturbing events. Of course we see in Syria, 30,000 civilians having been killed by the military there. We see in -- in Libya, an attack apparently by, I think we know now, by terrorists of some kind against -- against our people there, four people dead."
Returning repeatedly to Iran, Romney argued that the nation is "four years closer to a nuclear weapon" and that Mr. Obama has "wasted" the last four years because "they continue to be able to spin these centrifuges and get that much closer." He also said that, if president, he would "make sure that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is indicted under the Genocide Convention."
The president defended his actions in Iran, touting the sanctions his administration has imposed there as effectively bringing the nation to its "weakest point economically, strategically, militarily than in many years," and vowing to "continue to keep the pressure on to make sure that they do not get a nuclear weapon."
Final presidential debate: Syria
"That's in America's national interest and that will be the case so long as I'm president," he said.
Asked for a strategy to curb ongoing violence in Syria, Romney accused the president of punting responsibility to the United Nations, and said the U.S. should promote a policy that would "identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together in a -- in a form of -- if not government, a form of -- of -- of council that can take the lead in Syria. And then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves."
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Romney likes to state what he believes in -which seems to be about everything, but Romney doesn't seem to really know anything! The only thing that is certain with Romney, his wealthy proprietors and the Republican Party is that they all despise Obama. Not Obama's policies, nor his inability, thus far, to correct the monumental blunders of the Bush/Cheney era, but Obama himself.
Prejudice is a malignant state of mind, devoid of intellect and sustained by hate. Trying to reason the prejudice out of someone is like trying to convince a corpse that physical therapy is the only solution to its problem.
Romney continued to repeat a lot of what Obama was saying regarding Foreign Policy and just 'trying' to sound more eloquent---very little authenticity in Romney. What a fraud!
The President also called Romney on taking credit for an educational program began 10 yrs before he was governor in Massachusetts, as Mitt continued to try and steer the debate to the economy and Mitt didn't bat an eye and kept right on playing up like the program that enjoyed success while he was governor was his idea to begin with, unbelievable!
Romney showed 'a little' integrity, finally acknowledging the President, agreeing with the Iran response Obama gave before he essentially repeated it!
Obama was right noting that Romney was saying he'd do what Obama's been saying and doing in Foreign Policy all along, only louder and expect a different result---like that's going to make a difference? In my view, Romney's louder is nothing more than a hucksters stale, hot air, LOL!
IRAN HATES AMERICA & IS DEVOLOPEING A NUCLEAR BOMB
=We Will Need more Horses & Bayonets
He might even vote for President Obama! ...But right now, his job is to bust chops!
Mitt Romney appointed Robert Zoellick as his national security transition planning chief. Mr. Zoellick stonewalled a GAO investigation http://citizenoversight.com/pdf/blwb.pdf into corruption at the World Bank requested by Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh. Paul Volcker's investigation into this corruption was discredited http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/04/06-3 With corruption at the World Bank, the United States lost the 66 year old Gentlemen's Agreement for the US to appoint the president of the World Bank http://www.imf.org/external/np/cm/2010/042510.htm
I am a lawyer who worked for twenty years in the World Bank's legal department. During oversight hearings for the appointment of the US Executive Director at the World Bank, I reported corruption at the World Bank to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Robert Zoellick, then President of the World Bank, fired me in retaliation. Senators Lugar, Leahy and Bayh commissioned a GAO study into corruption at the World Bank, but the World Bank only stonewalled. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/Karen_Hudes/china-financial-reform_n_1191600_127701808.html The US Congress is requiring the World Bank to make significant progress in protecting its whistleblowers before its capital increase may be disbursed under Section 7082 of H.R. 2055, signed into law on December 23, 2011. The National Taxpayer's Union has a petition about this corruption at: http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-treasury-protect-whistleblowers-at-u-s-taxpayer-funded-international-banks Roughly three-quarters of the American public consistently prefers that the United States act jointly with other nations in foreign affairs.
I met with the Chairman of the World Bank's Audit Committee in 2009, and the Audit Committee appointed KPMG to audit the World Bank's internal control over financial reporting. When KPMG did not follow Generally Accepted Audit Principles and Standards, I met with the UK's Serious Fraud Office. In 2010 the SFO called the US Securities and Exchange Commission. I testified before the European Parliament on May 25, 2011, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201105/20110518ATT19540/20110518ATT19540EN.pdf and my testimony is on the UK Parliament's website: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmintdev/writev/402/contents.htm
The UK's Financial Reporting Council is investigating KPMG's failure to follow auditing standards. The UK replaced Andrew Mitchell as Secretary of International Development on September 4, 2012.
I commented in Behar's article in Forbes (hit expand all comments twice): http://www.forbes.com/sites/richardbehar/2012/06/27/world-bank-spins-out-of-control-corruption-dysfunction-await-new-president/