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Reaction to Romney's efforts last night from a committed conservative, very close friend and fellow memo reader. "Dan Pipes has it exactly right.
I turned it off in disgust after Romney pathetically missed one opportunity after another.
I was incredulous when, in response to the first softball question about Libya, Romney not only failed to capitalize, he actually agreed with Obama.
He made Obama look like Reagan.
You can’t play it safe with the election so tight." (See 1 below.)
I do not disagree with my learned friend but perhaps Romney and his handlers had another strategy in mind.
I too am more inclined to go for the jugular when you are given openings and when the cause is so critical.
Second, Pipes writes what I said in a previous memo - Obama sets up false straw men and proceeds to knock them down and Romney failed to point this out time and again.
I missed Neil Cavuto's interview of Bernie Marcus yesterday and will try and see if I can retrieve it but even not having heard it, I can state emphatically, I am sure Bernie would have responded quite differently than Romney had he been in the same seat last night.
Romney made some pointed remarks but he seems reluctant to step on his opponent's 'bunions!' I am more inclined to stomp given the opportunity.
Scheiffer did a credible job and yes, Romney failed to take advantage allowing Obama to come across as a foreign policy expert when, in fact, everything Obama has tried has failed and will continue to fail because our enemies have taken his measure and find him a pushover. He is full of high sounding phraseology but his passivity and actions belie his wordiness.(See 1a and 1b below.)
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Radical Islam and those who perpetuate its sick ideology are the enemy of world peace and should be treated accordingly. (See 2 below.)
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I clicked on NeilCavutoBernie Marcus and retrieved the Oct 22 interview. Typical Marcus - telling it like it is and mincing no words.
What Bernie is telling the world is very simple and easy to understand . When an administration creates the air of uncertainty business men, who are successful and plan, cannot do so. They pull back on their capital investing and expansion.
Second, when these same businessmen are faced with continuous rules and regulations that are crippling they also pull back on capital investing.
Finally, when an administration demonstrates animus towards small businessmen they have a legitimate reason to distrust their government. Their natural reaction, again, is to pull back, not invest and hunker down.
Obama does not have a clue how businesses operate. He never ran one, never hired people to make anything etc..
If you want more Solyndras, rules and regulations and big crippling government then Obama is your man.
If you believe America's entrepreneurial spirit needs reviving, as Bernie and myself do, and the budget moving towards balance then go with Romney, and may the better man win.
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Awake you on the Jewish Left! (See- 3 below.)
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Market correction we currently are experiencing is as I thought and overdue. Unless something serious happens it should be contained around a 5% decline.
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MCGurn, Stephens and Keane have it right. (See 4 and 4a below.)
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Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)Dear Reader:
Having been criticized by some for my response to the 2nd debate, it might be useful to explain what I am and am not doing in these analyses.
- Although sympathetic to Romney, I am not flacking for his campaign. I write to express my sincere opinion and assume that readers want that from me.
- My opinions focus on the Middle East dimension of the debate, rather than its possible impact on the presidential race. Perhaps this debate stopped Romney's momentum, perhaps it did not; that is not my topic.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Pipes
Romney Stumbles on Foreign Policy
By Daniel Pipes
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The final presidential debate focused disproportionately on the Middle East. Four of the six segments were on the Middle East, just two on other topics (one about the U.S. role in the world, the other about China). Egypt was mentioned 11 times, Libya 12 times, Iraq 22 times, Pakistan 25 times, Syria 28 times, Afghanistan 30 times, Israel 34 times, and Iran 47 times. In contrast, the European crisis got no mention, nor did India, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, or Australia.
Barack Obama has a weak record in the Middle East, but one would not learn this from the debate, where Mitt Romney praised Obama's achievements ("It's wonderful that Libya seems to be making some progress"), agreed with Obama more than he disagreed, and rarely pointed out his failings. Presumably, Romney took this mild approach to establish his likeability, competence, and suitability to serve as commander-in-chief.
Expressions from the third presidential candidates' debate, focused on Middle East policy.
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When asked about Egypt, Romney digressed to the need for a strong U.S. economy. When asked about American's role in the world, he touted the achievements of 4thgraders in Massachusetts during his governorship. Perhaps his recurring emphasis on the economy will win over the elusive undecideds, but it left this viewer frustrated.
The Libya topic was Romney's great surprise and his missed opportunity. Asked a softball question about the mistakes made in the aftermath of the attack on Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, he talked about better education, gender equality and other worthy goals – but ignored the opportunity to establish that the Obama administration is not only inept but engaged in fabrications. Most agonizingly, Romney congratulated Obama for taking out Osama bin Laden without noting that this did limited good, for Al-Qaeda still had the ability to attack and kill Americans in Benghazi.
In terms of policy, Obama made statements about Iran worthy of note: "As long as I'm president of the United States Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. … A nuclear Iran is a threat to our national security, and it is a threat to Israel's national security. … We are going to take all options necessary to make sure [the Iranians] don't have a nuclear weapon." Oddly, Romney replied with a detailed program of actions (such as indicting Ahmedinejad under the Genocide Convention) but did not make parallel statements of intent.
Like senators who vote leftwards for six years but then campaign as moderates during election season, Obama presented himself in this and the other debates as profoundly different from the president he has been. Someone not versed in his ideology and his record would not realize his distaste for a powerful United States. He sounded like a nationalist, making punchy patriotic statements ("I said if I got bin Laden in our sights I would take that shot"), speaking with a smooth eloquence, and showing himself at ease and in control. The question is, how many people will be fooled by this performance? (October 22, 2012)
1a)Libya and Lies
It was a little much when President Barack Obama said that he was "offended" by the suggestion that his administration would try to deceive the public about what happened in Benghazi. What has this man not deceived the public about?
Remember his pledge to cut the deficit in half in his first term in office? This was followed by the first trillion dollar deficit ever, under any President of the United States -- followed by trillion dollar deficits in every year of the Obama administration.
Remember his pledge to have a "transparent" government that would post its legislative proposals on the Internet several days before Congress was to vote on them, so that everybody would know what was happening? This was followed by an ObamaCare bill so huge and passed so fast that even members of Congress did not have time to read it.
Remember his claims that previous administrations had arrogantly interfered in the internal affairs of other nations -- and then his demands that Israel stop building settlements and give away land outside its 1967 borders, as a precondition to peace talks with the Palestinians, on whom there were no preconditions?
As for what happened in Libya, the Obama administration says that there is an "investigation" under way. An "on-going investigation" sounds so much better than "stonewalling" to get past election day. But you can bet the rent money that this "investigation" will not be completed before election day. And whatever the investigation says after the election will be irrelevant.
The events unfolding in Benghazi on the tragic night of September 11th were being relayed to the State Department as the attacks were going on, "in real time," as they say. So the idea that the Obama administration now has to carry out a time-consuming "investigation" to find out what those events were, when the information was immediately available at the time, is a little much.
The full story of what happened in Libya, down to the last detail, may never be known. But, as someone once said, you don't need to eat a whole egg to know that it is rotten. And you don't need to know every detail of the events before, during and after the attacks to know that the story put out by the Obama administration was a fraud.
The administration's initial story that what happened in Benghazi began as a protest against an anti-Islamic video in America was a very convenient theory. The most obvious alternative explanation would have been devastating to Barack Obama's much heralded attempts to mollify and pacify Islamic nations in the Middle East.
To have helped overthrow pro-Western governments in Egypt and Libya, only to bring anti-Western Islamic extremists to power would have been revealed as a foreign policy disaster of the first magnitude. To have been celebrating President Obama's supposedly heroic role in the killing of Osama bin Laden, with the implication that Al Qaeda was crippled, would have been revealed as a farce.
Osama bin Laden was by no means the first man to plan a surprise attack on America and later be killed. Japan's Admiral Yamamoto planned the attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, and he was later tracked down and shot down in a plane that was carrying him.
Nobody tried to depict President Franklin D. Roosevelt as some kind of hero for having simply authorized the killing of Yamamoto. In that case, the only hero who was publicized was the man who shot down the plane that Yamamoto was in.
Yet the killing of Osama bin Laden has been depicted as some kind of act of courage by President Obama. After bin Laden was located, why would any President not give the go-ahead to get him?
That took no courage at all. It would have been far more dangerous politically for Obama not to have given the go-ahead. Moreover, Obama hedged his bets by authorizing the admiral in charge of the operation to proceed only under various conditions.
This meant that success would be credited to Obama and failure could be blamed on the admiral -- who would join George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton and other scapegoats for Obama's failures.
1b)
Obama calls Romney ‘all over the map’ in foreign policy debate
- In a photo combo, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama speak during the first presidential debate at the University of Denver, Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012, in Denver. (AP Photo/David …
President Barack Obama portrayed rival Gov. Mitt Romney as "all over the map" and inexperienced on key national security issues in the third and final debate of the presidential election Monday night in Boca Raton, Fla. Each candidate attempted to paint the other as an untrustworthy commander in chief, but Romney's performance was less aggressive than Obama's, and the governor was often on defense in the 90-minute exchange.
"I know you haven't been in a position to actually execute foreign policy—but every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong," Obama said, referencing Romney's initial support for the Iraq war.
The president in general was harshly critical of Romney, and landed a few well-placed zingers. "The Cold War's been over for 20 years," he said in response to Romney's comment from several months ago that Russia is America's primary geopolitical foe.
He later said, "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets," in response to Romney's criticism that America has fewer Navy ships than in the past. "We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines," the president added, a touch of mockery entering his voice.
Romney frequently pivoted to domestic issues and the economy, including the high number of Americans in poverty, his education record in Massachusetts, and his plans for reducing the deficit and creating jobs.
On foreign policy, Romney did not criticize how Obama handled the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya, a topic he brought up in last week's town hall-style debate. Instead, Romney said the Middle East is in "tumult" and "chaos," and suggested Obama's strategy of killing Al Qaeda leaders in drone strikes is not enough to bring stability to the region.
"We can't kill our way out of this mess," Romney said. "We're going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the ... world of Islam and other parts of the world reject this radical violent extremism, which certainly [is] not on the run."
Romney also slammed Obama for what he called his "apology tour" in the Middle East, which he said projected weakness abroad. "The president began what I've called an apology tour of going to nations in the Middle East and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness," Romney said. Obama called this a "whopper" and criticized Romney for fundraising on his trip to Israel. "When I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn't take donors," Obama said. "I didn't attend fundraisers. I went to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself of the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable."
Despite the crossfire, the candidates seemed to agree on many key foreign-policy issues, including the use of drone strikes to kill people believed to be terrorists, harsh sanctions on Iran (though Romney said the sanctions should be even stricter), and a strategy of avoiding military involvement in Syria.
After Romney seemed to avoid specifics on how he would handle Syria's civil war differently from Obama, the president retorted: "What you've just heard Gov. Romney say is that he doesn't have different ideas."
Obama and Romney are statistically tied among voters in the most recent polls, with Romney able to catch up with the president on the strength of his performance in the first debate in Denver. On foreign policy in particular, Obama's lead over Romney, in the double digits only a few months ago, has shrunk to just four points, according to a recent Pew poll.
Americans considered President Obama the loser in the first debate in Denver by historic margins, and Romney's poll numbers soared after his strong performance there. When the candidates met for a rematch at Hofstra University on Long Island last week, a much more assertive Obama showed up, and snap polls showed he was considered a narrow winner of the night.
It remains to be seen if this debate will provide a "bounce" for either candidate in the last few weeks of the campaign. Voters overwhelmingly say the economy and jobs are the most important issues for them in this election.
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2)---Qatari visit hands Hamas major victory
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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — When the ruler of Qatar arrives in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, he will hand the Palestinian territory'sHamas rulers their biggest diplomatic victory since taking power five years ago.
The first head of state to visit Hamas-controlled Gaza, the emir will deliver more than $250 million in aid, a move that will deepen the Islamic militant group's control of Gaza and which reflects the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood across the region.
The Brotherhood now governs Egypt, and Islamic parties have made gains elsewhere in the region since last year's popular revolts that became known as the Arab Spring. Qatar has been a key ally of the movement, which includes the Palestinian offshoot Hamas.
The visit by Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani comes over the deep reservations of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Hamas ousted Abbas' forces in Gaza during its June 2007 takeover of the territory, leaving the president in control only of the West Bank.
In a phone conversation on the eve of the visit, Abbas welcomed the emir's intentions to help the people of Gaza, under an Israeli-led blockade since the Hamas takeover, but reminded the Qatari leader that he remains the internationally recognized leader of the Palestinians.
"He stressed the necessity to preserve the legitimate representation of the Palestinian people ... and he asked him to urge Hamas in Gaza to go for reconciliation and to end this split," said Abbas' spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdeneh.
Another Abbas aide, Nimr Hamad, used even stronger language. "Such visits give Hamas the impression that the visitors recognize their rule and that would reinforce the split and not help the reconciliation," he said.
On Monday, however, it was clear that the trip was proceeding.
A late night statement from the office of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi said his country welcomed the emir's visit to Gaza, which it said were part of Egypt's effort "to break the siege on the people" of the territory.
A convoy of some 30 brand new SUVs and minivans, along with several dozen Qatari security men, crossed through the Egyptian border in preparation for the visit.
Streets were decorated with white and maroon Qatari flags and signs thanking the Gulf nation for its support. Hamas' Interior Ministry, which oversees security, said it had a "well prepared plan" to protect the emir, deploying thousands of security men and blocking roads to Gaza City's main soccerstadium, where the Qatari leader was expected to address a packed audience.
"No doubt the visit is very important. I hope, as many others do, that he will work again to achieve the national reconciliation," said Ihad Awad, a 29-year-old civil servant.
Qatar has played a key role in the reconciliation process. Earlier this year, the emir brought together Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader in exile, Khaled Mashaal, to make a deal. Under the arrangement, Abbas was to lead an interim unity government to pave the way for new elections in the Palestinian territories.
That deal, like previous reconciliation attempts, quickly foundered, in large part because of opposition by Gaza's Hamas leaders.
In a statement, Hamas said the emir's arrival had deep significance. "It is the first visit by an Arab leader at this level to Gaza," it said. "This breaks the political isolation of the government and opens the door to break the siege."
When he crosses through the Rafah crossing along Gaza's southern border with Egypt, Sheik Hamad will discover a territory hit hard by war and international isolation. Hamas, whose violent ideology calls for the destruction of Israel, is considered a terrorist group by Israel and the West.
Following the takeover, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza, a crowded seaside strip of land sandwiched between the two countries. The following year, Israel launched a fierce three-week military offensive in response to repeated rocket fire out of Gaza.
The Israeli actions have hit Gaza's economy hard, and much of the damage from the fighting has never been repaired. Still, Hamas remains firmly in control, and momentum seems to be swinging in the group's favor.
Two years ago, Israel was forced to ease the closure under heavy international criticism after a naval raid killed nine activists trying to break the blockade and sail to Gaza. Then, the Arab Spring swept longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power. The election of Mohammed Morsi, a fellow Islamist, in Egyptian presidential elections has raised expectations in Gaza of a new era of warmer relations.
While many Egyptians criticized Mubarak for cooperating with the Israeli blockade, rising militant activity in Egypt's Sinai peninsula have tempered calls for openness with Gaza. Al-Qaida-inspired groups in Sinai are believed to have ties with militants in neighboring Gaza.
Morsi's critics have used his closeness to Hamas to feed fears that Sinai will be controlled by Islamic militants. Morsi's government has backed away from proposals over the summer to establish a free trade zone with Gaza.
Military analyst Hossam Sweilam, a former Egyptian general, said the growing ties between Hamas and Egypt, with Qatar's backing, has "very dangerous ramifications."
Reflecting a fear commonly voiced in Egypt, he predicted Hamas would try to exploit the alliance to move militants into Sinai, potentially drawing Israeli retaliation. Israel captured the Sinai in the 1967 Mideast war, returning it 12 years later in a historic peace deal with Egypt.
"This support will deepen the rift between the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza Strip and will give a green light to Hamas to move its militant arm to Sinai to use it as its base to launch attacks against Israel and which will give Israel the pretext to invade and occupy Sinai once again," Sweilam said.
The Qataris have said the visit is purely humanitarian. The emir is expected to launch $254 million worth of construction projects, including three roads, a hospital and a new town that will bring thousands of jobs to the impoverished territory.
The economic boost is sure to help Hamas' standing, especially at a time when the rival government in the West Bank struggles to stay afloat because of international donors' failure to deliver promised funding.
The visit reflects the flexible foreign policy that Qatar has taken in recent years.
The oil-rich Gulf state expanded its regional influence during the Arab Spring uprisings that toppled dictators in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt last year, lending support to protesters linked to the region-wide Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, but has adopted a more militant ideology as part of its conflict with Israel.
At the same time, Qatar keeps close ties with Washington, hosting a major U.S. air base and thousands of American troops. The country is leading Arab calls to aid Syrian forces trying to topple Bashar Assad. Yet it also has close ties with Syria's key ally, Iran.
In 1996, Qatar made a groundbreaking move to allow Israel to open a trade office in the capital Doha. The office was closed in January 2009 after Israel's incursion into Gaza, and Qatar then began to boost aid to Hamas.
Qatar already wielded considerable indirect influence through broadcaster Al-Jazeera, whose launch in 1996 was bankrolled by the Qatari government. It also won the right to host the 2022 World Cup, defeating far bigger bidders including the United States and Japan.
Qatar's economic reach goes well beyond its oil and gas riches. Its government-backed sovereign funds hold a variety of trophy assets including stakes in London's Heathrow, Stansted and other British airports; the Italian fashion house Valentino; Britain's venerable Harrods department store; French luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and high-end American jeweler Tiffany.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)OBAMA, THE BROTHERHOOD, AND THE JEWISH LEFT
By Mike Lumish
Is the American Jewish left suffering from cognitive dissonance?
The Muslim Brotherhood is the foremost anti-Semitic organization in the world today. During the Morsi campaign they called for the conquest of Jerusalem. During World War II they supported the Nazis. Sayyid Qutb, one of their founding figures, wrote a pamphlet entitled “Our Struggle with the Jews.” They believe in an international caliphate in which sharia would reign throughout the world, thus making Jews, and other dhimmis, second- and third-class citizens; women the property of men; and gay people, quite frankly, dead….
Barack Obama supports the Muslim Brotherhood and progressive-left American Jews support Obama; thus those Jews, whether they will admit it to themselves or not, and however they might otherwise justify it, support the Muslim Brotherhood. I find this situation to be absolutely unfathomable. How is it possible that after so many centuries of abuse throughout Europe and after 1,400 years of unjust violence and oppression against us in the Muslim Middle East, American Jews could possibly support an American president who helped usher the Muslim Brotherhood into power in Egypt? How is this possible?…
Denial plays a big role in this phenomenon, because if you were to ask your average American Jewish supporter of Barack Obama just why they are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood they probably would not know what the heck you were talking about. When explained to them that the Muslim Brotherhood is not only anti-Semitic, but even genocidal toward Jews, and that Barack Obama has supported their rise throughout the Muslim Middle East, particularly in Egypt, they would probably look at you as if you yammering at them in Swahili.
It’s pure denial. It is a wilful turning away from very serious facts and a deadly serious situation for the Jews in Israel. And if you do not think that Obama has actively supported the Muslim Brotherhood, how do you explain the fact that administration officials met with the Brotherhood on several occasions before they came into power in Egypt? How do you explain the fact that, over Mubarak’s objections, Obama invited the Brotherhood to his Cairo speech of 2009? How do you explain the fact that when Obama called for the deposing of Mubarak he knew that the Brotherhood would likely fill the power vacuum? How do you explain the fact that Hillary Clinton flew to Egypt to ensure the transition from military control of the country to Brotherhood control? However one slices and dices these facts, it is simply undeniable that Obama promoted the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East.
…[A]nother way in which “progressive” Jews justify their support for Obama, despite his support for the Muslim Brotherhood [is]: democracy. That’s right: The Muslim Brotherhood is misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-democratic, yet we must support Obama’s efforts to bolster the Brotherhood out of support for democracy! After all, democracy can be a messy business, so who are we to deny the legitimate national aspirations of the Egyptian people? Sure, those national aspirations may include the conquest of Jerusalem and the genocide of the Jews but, hey, that’s democracy….
They seem to think that supporting democracy is some sort of suicide pact, and that we are obligated to honor any choices made by any people anywhere so long as those choices are expressed via the voting booth. Well, excuse me, but didn’t a particularly nasty individual rise to power in Germany during the 1930s via democratic means? I think he did.
We should support democracy, but we are also allowed to take sides — and we are under no obligation to support any political party, much less the foremost anti-Semitic political party on the planet. What I think is that American Jews are making a truly awful mistake in supporting this presidency. I voted for the guy in 2008, but I also watched and learned. The main thing that I learned was that I was dead wrong to support Obama to begin with. No Jewish person should support a politician who supports the Brotherhood.
Progressive-left American Jews are holding two contradictory notions in their minds. They, for the most part, support the State of Israel, but they also support president Obama. Obama supports the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood tells us that they want to conquer Jerusalem. Is this not cognitive dissonance?
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4)John McCain Saw It Coming
In 2008, the GOP nominee warned that an Obama foreign policy would be naïve—and dangerous for America.
By William McGurn
On the ballot, the two candidates for president in 2008 were Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. Even so, Mr. Obama largely refused to run against Mr. McCain. On those occasions he deigned to acknowledge his rival's existence, he presented the Arizona Republican as little more than a Bush clone.
Now we are entering the final weeks of the 2012 campaign. As we saw during the Monday debate in Boca Raton, Fla., once again President Obama is campaigning against his opponent as a Bush retread. The bet seems to be that whatever his own policy shortcomings, the American people will overlook them if he can characterize the alternative as a return to the Bush years.
In 2008 that proved a winning strategy. It worked because that election occurred against a backdrop that underscored the price of the Bush foreign policy. Weary of two wars abroad (not to mention a devastating flood and a financial crisis at home), American voters were not inclined to inquire too deeply about an attractive new candidate who promised to bring our troops home, talk to our enemies instead of invading them and restore our reputation abroad.
Associated Press
Sen. John McCain
Now that backdrop has changed. Mitt Romney alluded to that in the debate when he spoke about what he sees when he looks at what's happening around the world: "Iran four years closer to a bomb"; "the Middle East with a rising tide of violence, chaos, tumult"; "Syria with 30,000 civilians dead and [President Bashar] Assad still in power"; "North Korea continuing to export their nuclear technology"; Russia backing out of its commitment to a joint program to destroy nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Mr. Romney's message: If we're paying a price in the world in 2012, it isn't because of George W. Bush. It's because of President Obama.
Not least of Mr. Obama's promise in 2008 was that his policies were practical and hard-headed. Indeed, the surge of troops he ordered for Afghanistan seemed to confirm he was a new kind of Democrat. Of course the deadline for withdrawal he set in the same speech announcing the surge pointed to something we have since learned about Mr. Obama: The toughest parts of his policy frequently serve as cover for the weakest, in the same way that his aggressive use of drones has become a substitute for, rather than an expression of, a muscular antiterror policy.
Mr. Romney devoted much of the evening to talking about how nations such as Iran "saw weakness where they had expected to find American strength." In particular the president seemed to bristle when the governor referred to his "apology tour" abroad. That was especially true when Mr. Romney cited the line from an Obama speech in which the president had said America had "dictated" to other nations.
Ironically, for all the heat and confusion over Benghazi in the second debate, in this one Libya made only a brief appearance at the beginning. Though the murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens was mentioned, Mr. Romney did not note that he was the first U.S. ambassador to lose his life in the line of duty since our ambassador to Afghanistan was killed during a kidnapping attempt in 1979.
Nor did Mr. Romney make any attempt to reprise his attack on the White House response to Benghazi. He might have pointed out that far from failing to recognize the gravity of the attack on our consulate, the White House reaction suggests it recognized all too well what that attack meant—at least in terms of their political narrative. That would explain why they spent so much time blaming a YouTube video. Surely they understood that an al Qaeda attack that claimed the lives of four Americans on the anniversary of 9/11 exposed the full hollowness of Joe Biden's claim: "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors GM -2.97% is alive."
All in all, Mr. Romney did a fair job of illuminating the weaknesses of President Obama's foreign policy without coming across as a man whose solution is to invade Iran. Then again, most of what we heard last night from Mr. Romney in the third debate we heard four years ago —from John McCain.
Whatever his faults as a presidential candidate, to read over the transcript from that first presidential debate back in 2008 today is to realize that ¬almost all of what Mr. McCain warned us about regarding Mr. Obama's foreign policy has come to pass: the danger of setting specific withdrawal dates for our troops; the naiveté of pledging to negotiate with leaders such as Castro, Ahmadinejad and Chavez without first insisting on conditions; the threat to Israel; going too light on Russia; the precarious situation in Pakistan, and so on.
Too bad we wrote Mr. McCain off as a cranky George W. Bush. Because he was trying to warn us that Mr. Obama would be the new Jimmy Carter.
4)Iran's Unrequited War
The mullahs are at war with us. Maybe we should return the favor.
By Bret Stephens
On Wednesday an Iranian-American named Manssor Arbabsiar pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring with Iranian military officials to blow up a restaurant in Washington, D.C. On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration and Iran had secretly agreed "in principle" to hold direct talks after the election, a disclosure to which the White House responded with a lawyerly denial.
And so it goes with U.S. policy toward Iran. They are at war with us. We seek bilateral negotiations and confidence-building measures with them.
That is a point that—as I write this column ahead of the final presidential debate—I hope to hear Mitt Romney hammer home when the subject of Iran inevitably comes up. Barack Obama told "60 Minutes" last month that "if Gov. Romney is suggesting we should start another war, he should say so." Sorry, Mr. President: When it comes to Iran, the mullahs started that war a long time ago. Wishing facts away doesn't change them.
And then there are the thousands of U.S. troops killed by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most lethal IEDs were manufactured in Iran for the purpose of killing Americans.
Let's also not forget the 52 American diplomats held hostage in Tehran for 444 days; the hostaging in Lebanon of Americans such as Thomas Sutherland and Terry Anderson; the de facto hostaging of American backpackers Sarah Shourd for 14 months and of her companions Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer for more than two years; the capricious imprisonment of Iranian-Americans visiting Iran such as Kian Tajbakhsh, Haleh Esfandiari and Roxana Saberi; the mysterious disappearance and apparent hostaging in 2007 of former FBI agent Robert Levinson; and the current imprisonment—under a suspended death sentence—of former U.S. Marine and defense contractor Amir Hekmati.
This has been Iran's record, which needs rehearsing because we tend so easily to forget it. What about the record of our responses?
As my Iranian-born colleague Sohrab Ahmari notes in the current issue of Commentary magazine, successive U.S. administrations responded with a menu of make-nice gestures. Ronald Reagan refused to authorize a military strike on an Iranian military base in Lebanon in retaliation for the Beirut bombings: Instead, he sent the Ayatollah Khomeini a personally inscribed copy of the Bible. There was no retaliation for Khobar: Bill Clinton was trying to tease out "moderates" in the Iranian government by apologizing for the 1953 Mossadegh coup—which Islamist clerics of the day had supported. George W. Bush never took direct military action against Iranian munitions factories producing IEDs: Instead, in his second term he adopted a policy of de facto engagement with Iran that was all but the opposite of his first-term rhetoric.
Which brings us to Mr. Obama. It would be unfair to say that the president's outreach to Tehran has been unprecedented. What's depressing is that it is too-precedented. It would also be unfair not to acknowledge the "unprecedented" sanctions he has imposed on Iran. But again, the depressing fact is that they are more campaign prop than policy tool—which explains why he has been waiving their provisions at every opportunity.
And now we have the New York Times story, whose chief interest, assuming (as I do) that it is true, is that the administration remains wedded to the idea that Iran's leaders want to bargain away the nuclear program they have sacrificed so much to develop and are now within sight of acquiring.
Maybe the president thinks decency obliges him to give diplomacy another chance. But it is from an excess of decency that 33 years of Iranian outrages have gone unavenged, and Iran now proceeds undeterred. Sensible policy on Iran begins not with the question of how to avoid a war—that war was foisted on us in 1979—but how to win it. Anything less invites further terror and dishonors the memory of Iran's many American victims.
4b)Al Qaeda Is Making a Comeback
Across the Middle East and South Asia, the group isn't dead or dying but on the rise.
By JACK KEANE
With Afghanistan the forgotten war this election season, many Americans might be wondering why we have 68,000 U.S. troops there at all. Sure, the Obama administration says they'll be out "on schedule" in 2014, but can't the U.S. immediately pull back and protect its interests with drones and special-operations forces alone?
To better understand the battle in Afghanistan, look to Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sinai, Syria or Iraq—all places where al Qaeda and associated groups are a growing presence. (Al Qaeda in Iraq has doubled in size in the year since U.S. troops left the country.) These terrorists have already killed Americans, and they have planned and executed several attacks on the U.S. homeland that have failed only thanks to technical problems or outstanding police work.
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US Marines of the 1st battalion 7th Marines Regiment walk towards a helicopter before leaving for camp Leatherneck.
While not the catalyst of the Arab Spring, al Qaeda and its friends are seeking to take advantage of the opportunities posed by revolutionary change throughout the Middle East. Despite the obvious intelligence and security failures that contributed to the attack against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, the reality is that in one night an al Qaeda-affiliated group destroyed a diplomatic post, killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and forced an end to clandestine U.S. activity in the area.
With al Qaeda not dead or on the run but on the rise across the Middle East and South Asia, there is only one place where the U.S. is on the ground and aggressively fighting back: in Afghanistan, al Qaeda's heartland.
But Americans receive limited news from the front. The latest headlines are dominated by so-called green-on-blue attacks in which Afghan soldiers or police have attacked their U.S. or allied trainers. These attacks are appalling, but it is important to understand that the attackers aren't our "Afghan partners." They are Taliban foot soldiers and sympathizers exploiting the very real partnership we have with the growing Afghan National Security Forces. The attackers represent perhaps 0.01% of the approximately 345,000 Afghan security forces. These terrorists are loud and bloody, but they are statistically rare.
Americans also hear little about the success of our troops in isolating al Qaeda and the Taliban, cutting them off from the local population, and helping Afghans stand against them. Or how U.S. troops are restoring security to areas such as Kandahar that have lived under the thumb of Islamists and warlords for years. Or how sustainable that security is: This year we dramatically reduced our military presence in Helmand and Kandahar, but residual allied forces, our Afghan partners and locals have prevented the Taliban from regaining its positions.
The fight is hard and the Afghans aren't easy partners, but we're not in this for the Afghans. We're in this for ourselves, and for our nation's security.
So why Afghanistan and not Libya, Yemen, Syria or Somalia? Simple. Because we are in Afghanistan, and in numbers substantial enough to secure and hold territory—denying Ayman al Zawahiri and his followers a foothold. Afghanistan remains an opportunity to deal al Qaeda a vital strategic blow, especially since we have abandoned all operations—including counterterrorism operations—in Iraq.
Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.
Considering all this still leaves a few reasonable questions, such as why U.S. forces can't leave and have counterterrorism troops take the lead. The answer is that special-operations forces are among the best and bravest of our troops, but they aren't magicians. They can't ensure that extremists don't find haven among 35 million Afghans, and they can't stop al Qaeda or the Taliban from preying on Afghan cities and towns.
Without the Afghans helping us in our mission, pretty soon we won't know of anyone to target with drones, and our special operators will roam through hostile territory unequal to the inflow of terrorists. We need the Afghans' help in this fight. They are giving a lot—and taking the casualties to prove it. But if we abandon them, they'll stop.
Anyone wondering what Afghanistan will look like if we abandon the war or draw down troops too rapidly should look to Iraq, where a residual force would almost certainly have halted the current re-emergence of al Qaeda. Or to Syria, where more moderate forces are being increasingly overrun by hard-line Islamists. Or to Yemen, where al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has carved out territory and an operational headquarters to plan attacks against America. Or to Libya, where the facts about Benghazi are still trickling out, but where we know that an al Qaeda-affiliated group was behind the deadly attack.
The only talking point on Afghanistan that the American people have heard this election season is "2014"—as in withdrawal. But al Qaeda and its friends world-wide have heard that too. And it gives them hope that in two short years their heartland will be ripe for retaking. They know full well—based on U.S. actions from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria—that U.S. policy is to disengage, and that momentum is on their side.
Gen. Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the U.S. Army, is chairman of the Institute for the Study of War.
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