"Kerry hits Romney on foreign policy; Says he is wrong to see Russia as foe" by Bobby Caina Calvan |
Globe Staff, May 26, 2012
WASHINGTON - Raising his visibility as a leading voice for President
Obama on foreign policy issues, Senator John Kerry Friday called Mitt
Romney “naive’’ and “wrong’’ for asserting that Russia is the nation’s
top enemy.
Related: Romney and Russia
Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized
the former Massachusetts governor and presumed GOP presidential nominee
for being “inappropriately threatening’’ when the two countries should
be seeking cooperation.
“I
think that candidate Romney has been breathtakingly off target, and
naive, and in fact wrong in his judgment about Russia when he said
Russia is our number one foe,’’ Kerry said in an interview aired Friday
night on Bloomberg TV’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.’’
Maybe Mitt was right? They certainly will be if EUSrael attacks Iran.
During an interview with CNN in March, Romney called Russia “without
question our number one geopolitical foe’’ in the wake of President
Obama’s “hot mike’’ comment in Seoul to then-Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility’’ in diplomatic dealings
with Russia after the presidential election.
In an opinion piece Sunday in the Chicago Tribune, Romney clearly
viewed Moscow as a threat, calling “a revanchist Russia’’ a peril to the
NATO alliance.
“At the same time that President Obama has been weakening our
military, he has sent the message - intentionally or not - that the
worth of NATO has diminished in America’s eyes,’’ Romney wrote. He did
not respond to requests for comment Friday.
Kerry’s remarks echoed similar statements by President George W.
Bush’s secretary of state Colin Powell, who earlier this week cautioned
Romney about describing Russia as a foe.
Related: Powell sizes up Romney’s foreign policy stance
“Foe means enemy,’’ Powell told CNN. “Will we have differences of
opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to
time, and we get mad at them? That’s part of the normal diplomatic
relations.’’
Without naming names, Powell also raised concerns in an MSNBC
interview about Romney’s foreign-policy advisers, saying some were
“quite far to the right.’’
One of the advisers is John Bolton, the conservative ambassador to
the United Nations under Bush. When Bush nominated Bolton for that
position, Powell, who had left the State Department, declined to join
five other former Republican secretaries of state in endorsing him.
Yes, Romney's advisers are full of former Bush neo-cons.
Kerry, expected to be on the short list of possible successors to
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a second Obama term, said
he recently met with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and
learned how similar the US and Russian positions are on Syria, which has
been beset by more than a year of civil unrest.
Why, where is she going now?
The United States has proposed sanctions against the government of
Syrian President Bashar Assad, but Moscow and Beijing have resisted.
Kerry said the Russians “believe Assad has to go. I don’t think most
people know that. They have a difference of opinion as to how we might
achieve that and I think there are ways for us to actually be much more
cooperative with Russia on a number of issues. So I think it is an
enormous mistake to push Russia away and to make it the enemy that it is
not today.’’
Related: US will seek Russia's help in brokering exit of Assad
Certainly, the level of US-Russia cooperation could be better, Kerry said.
“But we have much bigger problems on this planet in the Middle East,
with the evolution of Egypt, with the challenge of Syria, terrorism, Al
Qaeda in Yemen, and so forth in the Arabian Peninsula.’’
Translation: FULFILLING ISRAEL'S HEGEMONIC DESIRES is our TOP PRIORITY!
Kerry is an obvious go-to spokesman for Democrats on matters of
geopolitics. “He’s chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and he’s
been traveling the world. He’s got expertise,’’ said Kurt Volker, who
served as the US ambassador to NATO from 2008-09.
A top Kerry aide who asked not to be identified also said, “He’s a
natural foil for Romney because they are from the same state.’’
It represents a role reversal from eight years ago when Romney, in a
prime-time speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention, assailed
then-presidential candidate Kerry....
Friday’s Bloomberg interview was not the first time Kerry has found
fault with Romney’s foreign policy pronouncements. In a March opinion
article in the Washington Post, Kerry took issue with Romney’s comments
on the campaign stump on Iran’s nuclear development. Romney had pounded
Obama for, in his view, not taking seriously enough the threat posed by
Iran.
“Creating false differences with President Obama to score political
points does nothing to move Iran off a dangerous nuclear course,’’ wrote
Kerry. “Worse, Romney does not even do Americans the courtesy of
describing how he would do anything different from what the Obama
administration has already done.’’
Ever notice discussions of U.S foreign policy always seem to come back to Iran?
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