Romney. the Neocons, and Iran

Remember how “W”, advised by the Neocon cabal, took us to war and invaded a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, absolutely no Al-Qaeda presence, and absolutely no weapons of mass destruction?

Well, watch out if the Mittster is elected. Many of these same Neocons are whispering in Romney's ear about Iran. His rhetoric over the past couple of weeks has made it clear that the nation would have to be crazy to elect this man to lead the country. (Of course, if the Republicans can effectively deny five million voters their basic democratic right to vote, he may just pull it off.) Besides taking hundreds of billions of dollars from domestic programs for military weapons that even the armed forces don't want, Romney has given every indication of letting the right wing Israeli leader Netanyahu call the shots on the timing of “military action” against Iran regardless of how damaging that would be to the United States. His political posturing and criticism of Obama's handling of the attacks on American embassies were totally offbase and show him unfit to lead this country in any capacity.

I've criticized Obama for staying in Afghanistan, for taking too long to extricate the US from Iraq, and for being played like a fiddle by Isreal's right wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu on the Palestinian – Israeli peace process. But at least Obama has finally gotten the troops out of Iraq and set a date when US combat forces will be out of Afghanistan. He appears to be making a good faith effort to negotiate a solution to the Iran nuclear program. In addition, Israeli overreaction to Palestinian actions has been relatively muted with nothing to date to compare with the devastating incursion into Palestinian territority at the end of the Bush's second term that more than 1000 Palestinians dead, many or most of the victims civilians. Can you imagine Romney putting any kind of restraint on Netanyahu? Yes that same Netanyahu who said earlier this week, in the middle of the election cycle in an effort to try to force Obama's hand, that if the Obama administration was unwilling to set fixed red lines that Iran could not cross, it “has no ‘moral right’ to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own” ?

Bad as his domestic policies would be, Romney's foreign and defense policies would bring about the same loss of US influence and respect seen during the Bush years. Combined with his tax breaks for the very wealthy and his deregulation, another costly war would be the crowning blow to the United States economy. We'd be worse off than with Bush. To say Romney knows nothing about foreign affairs may have been a mistatement on my part. If he really believes the garbage that's been coming out of his mouth recently, he would be downright dangerous.