"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, November 09, 2012

REPUBLICANS MUST REEVALUATE THEIR FOREIGN POLICY

Caroline Glick's written for National Review that the GOP is going to have to start rethinking their positions on foreign policy, including Israel, and notes a definitely telling error made by Mitt Romney:
For a host of reasons, Republicans have failed to make the case for an alternative to Obama’s policy of appeasement. During the election campaign, Mitt Romney embraced Obama’s support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He refused to say that the U.S. must take military action to thwart Iran’s nuclear aspirations, despite the clear failure of the current bipartisan policy of sanctions against Tehran. Justifying Obama’s abandonment of the United States’ longtime ally Hosni Mubarak, Romney said that he would have abandoned Mubarak as well, even though Mubarak was the anchor of the United States’ alliance system in the Arab world. Romney failed to criticize Obama’s open-door policy for friends of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.
Well, about Mubarak, since he was an autocrat and there were bad things that happened when he was in charge too (his involvement in helping the Achille Lauro terrorists get away with their crime), I'd say what he should have done was to declare Mubarak a bad lot due to his otherwise being adherent and appeasing of Islamofascism, and say that while he'd rather not consider him an ally due to his shady background, he wouldn't abandon Egypt, and definitely not the Copts.

But the point is well made that the kind of positions he took are surely a serious problem to the GOP's credibility, since they can insult the pro-Israel crowd and cause them to question the GOP's dedication to making this a better world. After all, what have they even done to openly and publicly address the harm Islam's done to Europe, what the PLO's doing to Israel, why it's wrong for Muslims to advocate segregation of Jews, and why it's wrong to call for 2-state solutions? Newt Gingrich made a good statement of fact about why there's no such thing as an Arab/Islamic country called palestine, and yet, some of the GOP's reps during the primary attacked him for it, without even asking what Israelis think of his positions. Paul Ryan apparently supports 2-state solutions too, and that could be one more reason why the GOP hurt themselves in the end.

So regarding foreign policy, is the GOP going to start changing their positions, and not act as though they absolutely must try to please both sides rather than just one? Well they're going to have to decide, and fast.

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