Posted on 10/08/2012 12:29:14 AM PDT by Zajko
Mitt Romney will call for an escalation of the conflict in Syria by arming rebels with the heavy weapons needed to confront president Bashar al-Assad's tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.
Romney is to make the proposal on Monday in what his campaign team has billed as a major foreign policy speech in Lexington, Virginia.
In extracts published in advance, he opened up the prospect, if he becomes president, of a US-Iranian proxy war being fought in Syria.
"Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran rather than sitting on the sidelines," he said.
The proposal would mark a significant shift from Barack Obama's administration's policy of trying to keep the conflict a low-intensity one amid fears it might turn into a regional war. Obama is putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the main backers of the rebels, to restrict the supply of weapons to small arms.
The Republican presidential candidate has made several attempts at establishing his credentials to be commander-in-chief but those speeches made little impact. Against the background of his win over Obama in last week's debate, the Romney campaign team is hoping this speech will be better received.
The speech is aimed at countering critics who say he has not had much to say so far about foreign policy and given little indication of the lines he would pursue as president.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Your sentiments are on target but the characterization of the Guardian is not. The Guardian is not liberal, either in the classical sense of supporting open inquiry and political pluralism or in the modern sense of supporting an expansive welfare state and unfettered personal license. Rather, the Guardian is a hard left rag with Trotskeyist and Maoist sympathies. I wouldn't trust its report of yesterday's weather.
You said...
“He should stay the HELL out of there. No good can come of it, and if true, is more in line with the Arab Spring crap.”
QFT
However to me, if this is indeed flag-raising, all it does is compound the problem of the camp not coming up with a viable position on this issue in the first place.
Leni
I think both sides of this mess are terrible. I think we should stay out of picking the lesser of two evils. Don’t listen to McCain, Romney!
If true, that was an incredibly stupid statement by Romney.
This would, if there was ANYBODY else who could beat Obama, cause me to NOT vote for Romney.
The Syrian “rebels” are agents of Al Qaeda and the Moslem Botherhood. Arming them is the same as encouraging the creation of the Caliphate. If ANY action at all is taken, it should be to arm and support Assad. At least he’ll provide some modicum of protection to Christians and other minorities.
I think our only legitimate interest in the mideast is Israel.
In all fairness the foreign policy views of Bush the 2000 election candidate was VERY different than what we ended up with.
He wants to continue foreign aid to create economic opportunity. (whatever that means)
From a political point of view, Republican candidates typically pose as “Internationalist” sophisticates during campaing season to avoid being tagged as bumptious “Isolationists,” like Pat Buchanan. For this reason I am prepared to cut Romney some slack.
Afer all, I don’t think that supporting foreign aid translates verbatim to “I want to arm with heavy weapons a rag-tag bunch of Islamist rebels who happen to oppose a Mideast autocracy that we don’t care for.” But, who knows? Perhaps Mitt has fallen under the spell of whomever it was who convinced President Bush that transforming Iraq into a Western-style democracy would be a walk in the park. Let’s hope not.
There is only one way I would support arming the Islammists over there for war. That is, if we plan to seal it off and let them commence to slaughter one another and give Israel the plan to nuke any of the jihadist nations who touch or threaten them.
It’s time to stop killing Americans with the lie that there are moderate (western) Islamists who can be free and successful. There are not.
I hope his advisors read this thread, over 70 posts and almost all of them anti-interventionist.
Add me to the “opposed” list too.
We shouldn’t GIVE them weapons, we should SELL them weapons, I mean if Romney gets elected domestic guns sales will hit the crapper, so we need to allow Smith and Wesson, Luger, Winchester, etc... to sell their products overseas to prevent the economic collapse of those great U.S. companies!
Plus it would be a nice boost to U.S. exports!
Stoopid idea. Protect Israel, nothing more.
You’re exactly right. Mitt should stay away from everything except for obama’s failures.
The American people don’t want to hear even a hint of us getting involved anywhere else at this point.
I really hope Mitt isn’t listening to McLame on anything. Mitt has it going now. Let’s hope he doesn’t fumble it away.
“Seems we are screwed whoever wins.”
Welcome to how I feel all the time. It’s not nice, but it makes you wonderfully cynical.
“Arm al queda and mb? You need new advisers Mitt. Look at Libya doofus.”
It’s probably his guy Robert Kagan, as he was bashing Beck awhile back for bashing the “Arab Spring.” Obama also has recommended Kagan’s books. They’re of the “If we liberate them, they will come” school of political thought with these barbarians.
If you refuse to learn from history ...
Here is the transcript: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/politics/mitt-romney-remarks-at-virginia-military-institute.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Romney kept mentioning George Marshall, so I guess he wants to see a Middle Eastern Marshall Plan.
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