Presidential Debates Prove that Obama and Romney’s Foreign Policy Is Virtually Identical

Washington's Blog

October 24, 2012

Anthony Freda: www.AnthonyFreda.com.

As made obvious by the third-party presidential debates, Romney and Obama’s foreign policy is virtually identical.

They both favor elective, preemptive wars of aggression.  They both want to force regime change in Syria, and they both characterize Iran as the “biggest threat” to the U.S.

Forbes’ Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry writes:

The debate could not plausibly be a real debate because of the following parameters: Barack Obama has essentially pursued the same foreign policy as the Bush Administration, and Romney has eschewed any fundamental critique of the Obama-Bush consensus ….

Even Jon Stewart mocked the similarity of their foreign policies:

Former British ambassador Craig Murray notes:

I have traveled this world much more extensively than either Obama or Romney, and I still do. I find everywhere, even in areas of conflict and economic difficulty, the vast majority of people are friendly, even kind, and have very similar aspirations, across cultures, to personal development and emotional fulfilment.

The striking thing about tonight’s US Presidential “foreign policy” debate, is when it did occasionally discuss foreign policy, the world out there was discussed not as a place of vast potential, but as a deeply disturbing place full of foreigners who are, apparently, all evil except the Israelis, who are perfect.

The vast benefits from cooperation and trade with “abroad” were not mentioned once that I noticed (though I confess the thing was so awful my attention wandered occasionally). Europe apparently doesn’t exist, other than Greece which is nothing more than a terrible warning of the dangers of not being right wing enough.

The correct attitude to all these foreigners that God so unfortunately and inexplicably placed on this planet, is apparently to maintain incredibly large armed forces, murder people with drones (they were both very enthusiastic on this one), place sanctions on them and declare them “currency manipulators”. The only surprising note was that both agreed that they could not kill everyone in Iran.

But “We can’t just kill our way out of this mess” was spoken with regret, rather than as an affirmation of the possibilities of cooperation instead. What a grim and joyless world view.