Saturday, January 14, 2012

Romney - Bolton

Mitt Romney's decision to have John Bolton campaign for him is a mistake. From my perspective, Bolton's criticism of Obama is unfair. Obama's foreign policy record presents a number of important areas for Republican criticism (uncertainty vis-a-vis Iran policy, contradictory positions on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, failure to fully support/take advantage of the arab spring, artificial deadlines for Afghanistan troop withdrawals etc) - BUT it is absurd to state that he doesn't care about protecting the US or that he deserves no credit for the Bin Laden operation*. Because John Bolton dislikes the President (a lot) he makes too many emotionally rooted statements that lack logical substance. 


However, what American foreign policy really needs is more rational analysis and less populist screaming.


*Re - Bin Laden Strike.. While in my opinion Obama waited too long before authorising the strike, he deserves credit for maintaining the secrecy of the operation and having the courage to decide to send ground forces into Pakistan.

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