Romney's Structural Handicap: An In-Depth Analysis of The Foreign Policy Issue in the Presidential Election

[Valin]

The Rubin Reports:

 

Barry Rubin

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

 

 

This article's purpose is to give a full analysis on the foreign policy aspects of the third debate between President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Remember that the idea that someone “won” the debate in terms of an outside observer’s standpoint or even based on a poll is misleading. The only important thing is whether either candidate swayed additional voters to his side.

 

Since I’m writing this to provide a detailed assessment, I’m not going to try to be short. So for your convenience let me begin by briefly explaining how Romney is so handicapped in dealing with foreign policy:

 

(Snip)

 

Both candidates agreed on what is a major fallacy: that U.S. policy needed to concentrate on economic development of the region. The underlying concept is that by raising living standards extremism will be made to go away. Some Middle Eastern countries have a lot of oil revenue (for example, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Libya) yet still are mired in extremism, violence, and anti-Americanism.

 

(Snip)

 

So it is silly to argue about who won the debate. What’s important is which vision of the international reality Americans will believe when they cast their ballots.