Trying to guess what Mitt Romney really thinks about anything can be a full time operation, especially when it comes to foreign policy, because of Mitt's rather insular career.
I had hoped that the personal key to Mitt's foreign policy was how his father George Romney had scuttled his run for the 1968 GOP nomination by saying that he had supported the Vietnam War after his 1965 visit to that country because he'd been "brainwashed" by the brass and diplomats. Mitt's sister says that from this incident, Mitt learned never to say anything too clearly. I had hoped that he had also learned from his beloved father to be skeptical about the conventional wisdom.
An NYT article today reveals that there might be another personal key to Mitt's foreign policy:
But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers. At the most formative time of their careers, they sized each other up during the firm’s weekly brainstorming sessions, absorbing the same profoundly analytical view of the world.
That shared experience decades ago led to a warm friendship, little known to outsiders, that is now rich with political intrigue. Mr. Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is making the case for military action against Iran as Mr. Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is attacking the Obama administration for not supporting Mr. Netanyahu more robustly.
The relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Romney — nurtured over meals in Boston, New York and Jerusalem, strengthened by a network of mutual friends and heightened by their conservative ideologies — has resulted in an unusually frank exchange of advice and insights on topics like politics, economics and the Middle East.
Uh, oh.
I'm a big admirer of Bibi. The main problem I see with Bibi is that he happens to play for a different team. And he already has no shortage of boosters and rooters on our team pushing him and his team forward at our team's expense. We don't really need Bibi, with all of his other advantages, having a special backdoor friendship with the President of the United States in which he can exert his energetic personal magnetism over Mitt's Mormon blandness.
It's like if somebody was interviewing to be the next coach of the Indianapolis Colts and he mentioned that he frequently had long, heartfelt talks with Bill Belichik of the New England Patriots. I don't know, maybe that would work out well ...
It's like if somebody was interviewing to be the next coach of the Indianapolis Colts and he mentioned that he frequently had long, heartfelt talks with Bill Belichik of the New England Patriots. I don't know, maybe that would work out well ...
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An NYT article today reveals that there might be another personal key to Mitt's foreign policy: But in 1976, the lives of Mitt Romney and Benjamin Netanyahu intersected, briefly but indelibly, in the 16th-floor offices of the Boston Consulting Group, where both had been recruited as corporate advisers....
Orit Gadiesh, the daughter of Falk Gadiesh (formerly Gruenfeld), one of the Israeli army's first brigadier generals and a member of the General Staff, served on Romney's transition team when he became governor of Massachusetts. She also worked with Romney at Bain and succeeded him there as chairwoman. She has also served in military intelligence for Israel.
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/power_the_100_women_who_run_this_town/page2
Yeah but Mitt’s toughness on immigration will be much more important to the country.
Any war with Iraq will very likely be exclusively a missile and air war, not a boots on the ground invasion. No one has been talking about regime change or making it a more liberal democracy, it’s all about taking out the nuclear enrichment facilities.
Yes there would likely be some damage to US naval assets but probably not that much. I don’t think we’d be stupid enough to have US carriers or their battle groups within Iran’s missile range, which is only about 250 kilometers, whereas our Tomahawks in taking out their missiles and radar facilities guiding them have a range of 10 times that.
Not that I’m in favor of the US taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities. It’s likely to inspire a lot of terrorism against us. I really don’t see why Israel shouldn’t be able to live with containment and mutually assured destruction (MAD) as we did against the Soviets mostly all through the cold war and to an extent to even today.
Also I can't stand many of the Obama administrations initiatives somewhat out of the headlines, such as much more push to create housing integration for NAM's who must be subsidized to live in more affluent mostly white and sometimes also asian suburbs, the education department's infamous April of last year radical feminist "dear colleagues" letter requiring all Unis getting federal funding (all of them) to uniquely require all student disciplinary hearings over charges of date rape or sexual assault to use a 50.1% evidence standard, far more aggressive EEOC applications of absurd disparate impact regulations, and so on.
Romney will be a total puppet for Israel. At least Obama tried a tiny bit to challenge the stranglehold Israel has on American foreign policy, first by opposing the Iraq war when he was a senator, and then by getting into a public confrontation with Netanyahu. If Obama gets reelected, the resentment of being lectured in his own white house by a foreign leader as Israel's puppets in the congress cheered netenyahu on, might inspire Obama to further liberate the U.S. from Israel.
It's funny, when obama was called a liar by an elected heckler during his speech, the media condemn the racist lack of respect a black president gets. Similar condemnations when a white governor wagged her finger at Obama. But when a Jewish foreign leader publicly lectures Obama like he's a child in the white house, not a word of criticism from the media.
I doubt Bibi will hypnotize Mitt with animal magnetism, that's who/what Mitt Romney is -- a guy who goes by the numbers not charisma (the opposite of Bush and Clinton and Obama).
Besides, my main criticism here is that most on this site have an addiction to fantasy regarding the US, Israel, and the Middle East. It has been US policy since FDR (who conceived it) to dominate the Gulf. This means a marriage of interests with Israel, which does not want to be nuked out of existence as a demonstration by Iran, and the US which must prevent Iranian nukes and thus dominance of the Gulf.
Like that nice, safe suburb? That private car? That distance from guys like Trayvon Martin? Well, news flash it does not come for free. Until the US economy and your gas tank runs on unicorn farts and rainbows, we need oil. Which means Saudi, UAE, Kuwaiti, and the other Gulf Arab oil producers free from Iranian domination. The FT ball-parked Putin's break even point for his budget as a function of the world price of oil. His current budget is around $118 or so; below that with current spending Russia goes into deficits. No one will loan him money (because they'll never get it back), and with his proposed budgets and new spending to buy social peace (subsidies) his break even is higher, around $140 a barrel or so IIRC. Iran is even worse, they need more subsidies (like cheaper food and FUEL) to pay off a bigger goon squad.
Best case: Israel takes out Iran's nuke facilities, plays bad cop (with Saudis and others privately applauding) while the US rebuilds the US Navy (down to less than 300 ships now) and prepares to do something about Iran's nukes.
Unless you want to move into next to guys who listen to C-Murder every night.
Anon 10:13 -- is your fantasy that the US does not run on oil, but Unicorn Farts and Rainbows, something you'd put to the test? Would you will be willing to live with gas at say, $10 a gallon? Would you like most of your money going to food and transport, and be force to live in say, South Central, or Compton, or East LA, or other similar garden spots close to major metro Business Areas?
Honestly, that's the worse case of fantasy addiction since Rich Lowry. And no that's not a compliment.
America cannot afford Iranian nukes. Because Iran (their regime really) wants them to turf us out of the Gulf with them (the way North Korea has around Korea and the Sea of Japan, essentially) and force the Saudis to cut production to drive up the world price of oil to a point where they are sitting pretty?
Why do you think Iran's regime WANTS nukes? They have no more threatening neighbors. The US left, Iraq is their puppet, the Saudis could not fight their way out of a paper bag, and Israel is far away, tiny, can't sustain any action for long, and wants to be left alone.
They want nukes for the MONEY. M-O-N-E-Y. Money. So they can buy off the people and pay their goons.
Obama got lectured by Netanyahu because he is weak (bowing to Chinese leaders, kissing the Saudi ring), and made Netanyahu look like a putz, who returned the favor. Had he been strong, and feared by his enemies, admired by his friends, that would not have happened. But then, neither would shoddy deliberate treatment (exiting by the trash in the White House back door and photographed that way), lecturing tone, and so on.
Obama was a typical Black pol, all ego assuaging and "putting it over" on a White guy he doesn't like, rather than a simple calculation of deals and beneficial alliances. FDR and Churchill may not have loved each other, had significant different goals (like preservation of the British Empire) but were on the same basic side. Obama can't even pull that off, with a guy who shares the US objective of no Iranian nukes (because he's the demo target of them).
Put it this way -- OBAMA accuses Iran of attempting to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador and blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC. That's an act of war. And he's being snotty to Bibi because it helps his ego. Call that the Jay-Z school of statesmanship. A petty Rap feud.
I am Lugash.
Josh Barro sounds like he's really in touch with conservative America:
http://www.nationalreview.com/agenda/276393/nobody-made-you-live-sticks-josh-barro#comment-bar
I am Lugash.
Whiskey, nothing does more to drive up the price of oil than starting and threatening wars in the middle east to protect Israel. Israel is a colossal strategic liability for the U.S. and starting wars (and before that sanctions) with Israel's enemies (saddam Husein) has destroyed American prestige, made America a target for terrorism, and cost America incalculable blood and treasure. America could have been cultivating lucrative partnerships with billions of oil rich Muslims, but instead it has become a puppet for the most unpopular country in the world.
However it is a testament to the high IQ of Ashkenazi Americans that despite being only 2% of America, they've acquired the wealth, influence, verbal skill, and manipulative skills to get the world's sole superpower
to sacrifice its own interests for Israel's. Nothing shows the validity of IQ tests as a measure of real world intelligence better than the incredible shrewdness displayed by the highest IQ ethnic group.
Whiskey, I may regret asking this, but why would the U.S. need 300 warships to destroy Iran's non-existent nuclear weapon? Also if Iran wants to destabilize the middle east to raise an oil windfall why does the same not apply to Saudi Arabia, the world's largest producer?
Why do you assume that Iran has no threatening neighbors? Based upon reading the U.S. media, it seems pretty obvious that Israel and by extension the U.S. is threatening to attack them pretty much 24/7.
Also since people have a natural fight/flight response, why do you assume that in the absence of cheap gas making white flight and suburban commuting impossible, nothing will be done to make urban living more palatable by forcing undesirable neighbors of duskier hues out into boonies?
"Besides, my main criticism here is that most on this site have an addiction to fantasy regarding the US, Israel, and the Middle East."
Coming from Whiskey, that's comedy gold right there, that is.
Whiskey,
So if it's just about cheap oil as you seem to suggest here, and (hypothetically) Russia and Iran or whatever gave us a deal for the cheapest oil possible in exchange for dumping Israel, and maybe taking out Israel's nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons, and maybe bombing it back to the stone age just for kicks, we should do it, right?
"The main problem I see with Bibi is that he happens to play for a different team...We don't really need Bibi...having a special backdoor friendship...in which he can exert his energetic personal magnetism over Mitt's Mormon blandness."
So I guess what you're saying here is that Bibi's a Top and Mitt's a Bottom?
My problem with Mitt is that, like so many Mormons, he probably thinks that if he plays nice with you that you'll play nice back. Some people play nice only to take advantage. Romney's a bit more worldly than that (and far wealthier than I) so perhaps he's not so naive, yet still I wonder.
Furthermore, I get the sense that Mitt will his gauge success not by increases in median income or decreases in the budget deficit, but by whether corporate profits rise or fall. I think he'd be perfectly content if corporate profits tripled but median income didn't budge.
I don't trust Romney, but it's been clear for quite some time that he's our only realistic option. MY belief, though, is that if he gets elected he won't inherit the absolute faith of conservatives which they gave to George W. Bush, much to their regret.
And here I was hoping Romney was just pandering to the Zionist lobby and didn't really mean it.
I don't have any problem with Israel being a close ally.
I do have a big problem with abandoning the Iraqi Christians and the Lebanese Christians and the Copts in Egypt, though.
And I have a HUGE problem with Israeli military officers becoming e.g. mayors of Chicago.
And no, I don't think that Iran or even Pakistan should be allowed to possess nukes.
In fact, in the immediate aftermath of 9-11, I would have been perfectly happy to have seen nations like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia simply cease to exist [in several great clouds of radiation-enhanced smoke].
In fact, rumor has it that the paleocons at the Pentagon drew up precisely those kinds of plans, circa Wednesday morning, September 12, 2001.
But Dubya over-ruled them.
The interesting question for me [vis-a-vis opinion on this board] is what Dick "Wichita Lineman" Cheney thought of those plans, and what he argued for at the time.
PS: To quote Rich "The Gerbil" Lowry's arch-nemesis: RUBBLE DOESN'T MAKE TROUBLE!!!
He seems to be frozen in cold-war mode judging from his remark that the Russians are our main threat. His tough sounding talk regarding foreign issues may not go over so well with an electorate that's become increasingly fatigued with the permanent warfare state. His advisers are said to be former Bush people which, if true, does not portend well. It's too bad since there's a need to get rid of E Holder and his group. Also, we really don't want any more hunchbacks appointed to our Supreme Court.
Bibi plays for a different team but how is a weak US in his team's interest?
There is more grassroots love for Israel in the US than in any other country. He's too smart to throw that away.
1/ You seem to believe that because Bibi plays for another team, that he plays for an opposing team. The idea that another team may be on your side, at least not for a long time, doesn't exist in league sports, but does exist in the game of nations.
2/ I always thought that a longstanding belief here was hta you want to be on the side of the high IQ people, no? Evidently both Mitt and Bibi count
Whew! What a relief to know that our candidate goes into office already knowing that our nations' interest are identical, always and forever. Unlike Palin, he won't have to cancel a Right to Life meeting to get a remedial course.
"Doug1 said...
Yeah but Mitt’s toughness on immigration will be much more important to the country."
Toughness how? Because he has said a few things? Big deal. G.W. Bush said that he wanted a more modest foriegn policy that eshewed nation-building. How did that turn out? Politicians, like Duffman from the Simpsons, say alot of things.
There is no reason - zero - to believe that Mitt Romney will be any different on immigration than have Obama or Bush. In fact, given the recent demographic changes in the Mormon church, I find it quite likely that Romney will prove to be quite welcoming to mexicans. And yes, I do believe that Romney is a Mormon first, and an American second. In my experience, most Mormons are.
"Any war with Iraq will very likely be exclusively a missile and air war, not a boots on the ground invasion."
It's "Iran", not "Iraq". There's a difference.
"I really don’t see why Israel shouldn’t be able to live with containment and mutually assured destruction (MAD) as we did against the Soviets mostly all through the cold war and to an extent to even today."
Bingo. Why should Israel, as a nuclear power, not be subject to the same hassles that we were? Why should Iran not want a nuclear deterrent, just as Israel has? Israel has more than enough nuclear weapons to deter Iran. And the people who run Iran are neither stupid nor crazy. We may not like them, but they are not suicidal, any more than was the Soviet leadership.
@Whiskey
So how has our supply of oil become either cheaper or more abundant since our involvement in the middle-east escalated over the last three decades? Enlighten us, oh wise one.
"The relationship between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Romney — nurtured over meals in Boston, New York and Jerusalem, strengthened by a network of mutual friends and heightened by their conservative ideologies — has resulted in an unusually frank exchange of advice and insights on topics like politics, economics and the Middle East."
.....Because Israel just doesn't have enough influence over American policy as it is. Perhaps the political elites of this country should just offer up their children as hostages to Israel, as was sometimes stipulated in the treaties between medieval european nobles.
Like that nice, safe suburb? That private car? That distance from guys like Trayvon Martin?
You know those beasts were either under control or kept within limits a few generations ago until your kin released them all over the damn country. Now we must keep spending money on gas to keep running away from them!
His current budget is around $118 or so; below that with current spending Russia goes into deficits. No one will loan him money (because they'll never get it back), and with his proposed budgets and new spending to buy social peace (subsidies) his break even is higher, around $140 a barrel or so IIRC. Iran is even worse, they need more subsidies (like cheaper food and FUEL) to pay off a bigger goon squad.
Typical bullshit neocon argument from the usual suspect. If the US attacks Iran, oil goes to north of 200 bucks a barrel and you can kiss the economy good bye. What happens afterwards is an academic exercise. Obama doesn't want to attack Iran BEFORE the election because he wants to get re-elected. An oil price spike before the election is something Obama needs as much as a hole in his head.
I think the drumbeat of media hectoring for an attack on Iran will build and build and the dumb evangelicals will pile right into it for Quagmire - II. God, I hope the Chinese are nice to Israel once America is finished!
Neither Iran, nor Russia, nor Saudi Arabia single-handedly control the oil price. Oil is a globally traded commodity - it is the most liquid global commodity market there is. And once you release the oil into the market, you get paid a market price and it is out of your hands. To suggest that OPEC (let alone Saudi or Iran or Russia) can CONTROL the oil price is also ridiculous. With prices being where they are, they are pumping as much as they can to maximise revenue. This is why spare capacity is so tight - the idea that they are squeezing the price would make sense if there was more spare capacity. If you go back to the 1970s and 1980s and see what happened, you will find that initially, OPEC were laughing with record high prices and Western consumers complaining about the pain of high prices. They thought the party would never end. However, in the 1980s, so much surplus supply came on the market that even a war between Iran and Iraq couldn't stop the oil price crashing from $39 a barrel in 1980 to $8 a barrel in 1985. OPEC even tried to stop the members from cheating on their quotas but they could not. This is the truth about the so-called Cartel. It actually is a tin pot corrupt cartel of corrupt governments that do even trust themselves let alone each other. The solution to high prices is increased production from more easily available sources like Canada, the shales in the US and offshore drilling. In addition, some transport can and should be shifted to Natural Gas and away from oil. Those things combined would make the US a lot less vulnerable to price shocks. A pointless war with Iran may serve Israeli military ambitions, it will do nothing to reduce the oil price.
Steve you must, must, MUST review this new book The Crisis of Zionism by Peter Beinart.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Crisis-Zionism-Peter-Beinart/dp/0805094121
It talks much about Obama's tumultuous relationship with Bibi and his friendships with progressive Jews.
The Jewish author appears to be a very liberal, super nice, almost to the point of being a feminine sissy, so it was shocking to see someone with his non-confrontational personality aggressively use the magazine he was editor of The New Republic to aggressively beat the drums for war with Iraq a decade ago.
Nonetheless he prides himself in being progressive on Jewish issues and says he was disappointed to see Obama cave to the pressure from Bibi and his American cheerleaders, and wishes the American Jewish community had done more to support Obama. He apparently feels that it's not healthy for Israel to never have to compromise.
"Other team?" Hostile team, maybe.
Dutch Boy:
Neither hostile nor perfetly aligned. Israel is an ally of the US, like Mexico, Japan, the UK, and Spain. Our interests often coincide, but sometimes don't. We spy on each other, lobby each others' governments, apply diplomatic pressure, but all within some limits to keep from messing up the alliances.
We can and do coordinate with Mexico on matters of common interest like fighting the narcos, but still have different policies wrt immigration (where Mexico is happy to have their citizens come here to work and send money home, regardless of what our laws say). We can and do coordinate with Japan on defense, while having trade disputes from time to time. And so on.
Israel is its own country, with its own interests. That means they lobby us and we threaten to cut some of our aid to influence their government, we coordinate on intelligence and defense and also spy on each other (the large numebr of Americans who have emigrated to Israel and started working for their military and spy agencies pretty much guarantees that we have spies there, as must the Russians). And so on.
This is how nations work. Even friendly natiions have divergent interests and internal pressures driving them in different directions.
NOTA said...
Dutch Boy:
Neither hostile nor perfetly aligned. Israel is an ally of the US, like Mexico, Japan, the UK, and Spain. Our interests often coincide, but sometimes don't. We spy on each other, lobby each others' governments, apply diplomatic pressure, but all within some limits to keep from messing up the alliances."
Hah. What treaty makes Israel an ally of the US? Or Mexico one either, for that matter?
Name them.
I HATE HATE HATE Whiskey's stupid posts.
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