A few weeks ago I made fun of politicians’ penchant for insisting that the solutions to our most intractable problems involve nothing more than applying the correct mixture of toughness, seriousness, and boldness.
Mitt Romney has an op-ed in the WSJ today, ostensibly meant to critique President Obama’s Iran policy, but it reads more like a parody of the toughness/seriousness/boldness school of political problem solving.
Romney writes that after Obama’s failed attempt at engagement with Iran over its nuclear program,
a serious U.S. strategy to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions became an urgent necessity. But that is precisely what the administration never provided.
So our unprecedented expansion of sanctions against the regime was indeed a strategy, but just not a sufficiently "serious" one. At the White House strategy planning sessions over Iran, someone probably asked, "should we pursue this strategy with lots of seriousness or not?" Obama must have answered, "No, not too much seriousness. Don’t overdo the seriousness." And there was the fatal misstep!
Romney goes on building his case:
Another key juncture came with the emergence of Iran’s Green Revolution after the stolen election of 2009….Yet President Obama, evidently fearful of jeopardizing any further hope of engagement, proclaimed his intention not to "meddle" as the ayatollahs unleashed a wave of terror against their own society. A proper American policy might or might not have altered the outcome; we will never know.
Obama’s policy wasn’t proper enough. Romney’s policies will all be more proper, and therefore "might or might not" be more successful. Good to know.
Ok time to get specific:
If I am president, I will begin by imposing a new round of far tougher economic sanctions on Iran.
Ah yes, I forgot the secret weapon of toughness, no doubt missing from all prior rounds of sanctions over the past thirty years. It’s good someone has finally thought to correct this.
I will speak out forcefully on behalf of Iranian dissidents.
The president spoke out many times on behalf of the Iranian opposition during the uprising. But as we are now aware, speaking out is useless unless you do it "forcefully."
I will back up American diplomacy with a very real and very credible military option. I will restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously. I will increase military assistance to Israel and coordination with all of our allies in the region. These actions will send an unequivocal signal to Iran that the United States, acting in concert with allies, will never permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.
The president has never taken the military option "off the table," but apparently he has left it on the table in an unreal and uncredible manner. Israel is already the largest recipient of U.S. aid, and the U.S. already "coordinates" with all of our allies in the region, so I don’t know how a symbolic increase in aid and "coordination" will combine to send a "signal" that is less equivocal than all the signals we’ve sent previously over the past thirty years.
When Iran was discovered plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador by setting off a bomb in downtown Washington, the administration responded with nothing more than tough talk and an indictment against two low-level Iranian operatives…Demonstrating further irresolution, the administration then floated the idea of sanctioning Iran’s central bank, only to quietly withdraw that proposal.
This is a difficult one, because Romney concedes that the president’s talk was "tough" which as we know is a precondition for success. But then he introduces a new variable, irresolution. It seems that irresolution cancels out toughness. I’m not sure how it holds up against seriousness or properness or forcefulness though. Romney should devise a rock-paper-scissors game to help us learn what beats what.
Look, Romney is smart to focus on the president’s Iran strategy. It is easy enough to attack the Obama economy. But foreign policy is perceived as a big strength of this administration, what with shooting Osama bin Laden in the face and presiding over the cascade of revolutions in the Middle East. The adminstration also concluded important free trade agreements, strengthened ties with India, and announced the impending end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for all the right-wingers out there, Obama has also continued his awesome stampede over our civil liberties, and he has deported more illegal immigrants than any of his predecessors.
While none of this stuff is likely to figure prominently in the general election (absent a major crack-up somewhere), the Republican nominee cannot just concede national security to the incumbent. But in the absence of genuine soft spots, I expect we’ll hear a lot more nonsense about toughness/seriousness/boldness masquerading as strategy. I actually had hopes that Romney wouldn’t need to resort to this sort of rhetorical vacuousness; but alas, he’s more comfortable perpetuating the fiction that American presidential edicts, sternly delivered, are the real secret key to solving world problems. Actually, maybe I’ve just stumbled on something. Someone check if sternness has ever been tried.
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