Romney: Obama Threatens to Pull America into Middle East 'Maelstrom'

On Monday, Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama’s “dangerous” foreign policy that threatens to pull America into a potential Middle East “maelstrom.” Romney accused Obama of giving away the prestige and respect America had earned throughout the world since the Cold War by believing “weakness” would win favor with America’s adversaries. 

Romney, in the Wall Street Journal, wrote Obama’s foreign policy has ultimately “heightened the prospect of conflict and instability.” 

Romney wrote that Obama has viewed “disturbing developments that are sweeping across the Middle East” in Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Iran as mere “bumps in the road” when “they are major issues that put our security at risk.

“By failing to maintain the elements of our influence and by stepping away from our allies, President Obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability,” Romney stated. “He does not understand that an American policy that lacks resolve can provoke aggression and encourage disorder.”

This is what caused the wave of violence that erupted in the Middle East and North Africa on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, which resulted in the death of Chris Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya. The Obama administration continues to cover up its foreign policy failures leading up to the violence. 

Romney also criticized Obama’s policy toward Israel, writing that Obama began his term with “the explicit policy of creating ‘daylight’ between our two countries,” but has “recently downgraded Israel from being our ‘closest ally’ in the Middle East to being only ‘one of our closest allies,’ ” and declined to meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Due to Obama’s Middle East failures, Romney argued America is losing credibility in the Middle East with allies and adversaries. 
 
 
Romney wrote that “our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them. We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies.”

Obama supported the Arab Spring, which ultimately led to more radical Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood gaining power in places like Egypt. The Arab Spring has become an Islamic Awakening, and Romney wrote that while “the Arab Spring presented an opportunity to help move millions of people from oppression to freedom,” it also presented grave risks the Obama administration failed to appreciate. 

“We needed a strategy for success, but the president offered none,” Romney continued. “And now he seeks to downplay the significance of the calamities of the past few weeks.”

For America to have a successful foreign policy in the Middle East, Romney writes America’s economic strength, military strength, and “the strength of our values” must be restored. 

“That will require a very different set of policies from those President Obama is pursuing,” Romney writes.