Mitt Romney is making loud noises about running for president again, and some of us are wondering why.
What is his rationale? It appears that some Romney supporters are touting the notion that because Romney correctly analyzed a couple of foreign policy issues, his “vision” is reason enough to run.
In other words, we should elect Mitt the Prophet because he guessed right a couple of times.
But only the deliberately self-deluded would not have seen Russian President Vladimir Putin as a growing threat to American interests. And how brain dead did you have to be not to see the continuing expansion of Islamism — especially when all through 2012 al-Qaeda was a growing presence in Syria?
Mitt’s third big prediction — that Iraq would be at risk unless American troops remained — was another no-brainer, although most of us saw a disintegration rather than a threat like ISIS.
Only President Obama and the liberals were stupid enough, naive enough, to believe otherwise on any of those three issues. So Mitt wants us to elect him based on the fact that he’s not as dumb as liberals and Obama?
Back in 2012, President Barack Obama was less charitable. “You haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy,” Obama told Romney in an October debate. “But every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong.”
More than two years later, however, hindsight suggests that’s not true. Romney offered warnings on several major issues that now appear prescient.
On Iraq, for instance, Romney told an audience in November 2011 that America’s withdrawal from the country the prior year was “an enormous mistake,” one that “puts at risk many of the victories that were hard-won by the men and women who have served there.” Obama later scoffed at his rival’s claim that the U.S. should have maintained a long-term troop presence in Iraq. Two years later, Obama has ordered thousands of troops back there to prevent the country’s collapse.
Putin’s annexation of Crimea and his intervention in eastern Ukraine dominated much of last year for Obama. But as early as December 2011 Romney called Putin ”a real threat to the stability and peace of the world,” noting that the Russian president’s rhetoric had been growing sharper.
After Romney later called Russia America’s top “geopolitical foe,” blocking U.S. interests at the United Nations and elsewhere, Obama openly ridiculed him: “The 1980s are calling to ask for their foreign policy back,” the president told Romney in an October 2012 debate. “You know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Romney also cast repeated doubt on Obama’s claim that, after Osama bin Laden’s killing, al Qaeda was “on the run.” He warned about the spread of radical Islam in the Middle East and North Africa. “This is a group that is now involved in 10 or 12 countries, and it presents an enormous threat … and we must have a comprehensive strategy to help reject this kind of extremism,” Romney said. That characterization of the Islamist threat seems more apt as extremist violence surges around the world.
Obama supporters point out that the president hasn’t said the terrorist threat has been eliminated. This is true, but it’s also true he has consistently downplayed the notion that terrorism is a major threat. A Romney aide recently bragged that if Romney had been president, ISIS would not have become powerful. As with the rest of Mitt’s prophecies, you run into the problem of playing alternate history games by making that claim. “What if?” counterfactuals like this are impossible to quantify in electoral terms, unless you want to demagogue your so-called prescience. To use it as a rationale to run for president simply won’t cut it.
In the end, America doesn’t need a prophet. We need a leader. And we’re still waiting for Mitt Romney to show us he’s up to that challenge.
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