Terrorists Terrorists Everywhere

Rick Perry thinks that Turkey is led by Islamic terrorists. Rick Santorum would tell Iran to meet our demands regarding their nuclear program or find themselves at war with us. Ron Paul would pull the troops back from everywhere, and let the world do its thing. Gingrich thinks the Palestinians are an “invented people,” and, like many of his fellow candidates, wants to more clearly take the side of Israel against the Muslims. He also calls himself a “cheap hawk,” which sounds just like how I would ideally like to describe my President, and changes positions (as he did on whether or not to intervene in Libya) as it is politically expedient to do so. In 2005 Mitt Romney called former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami a terrorist, and said it was inappropriate that he was being hosted at MIT on September 11^th. Lately he has accused President Obama of appeasement, and has promised a stronger and, I suppose, more belligerent foreign policy shorn of any of the troubling nuance Obama has seen fit to include. The bottom line is that all of the Republicans have foreign policy views that are too removed from reality, too driven by dogma and ideology, too tied to appealing to fear and anger, and ultimately too inherently dangerous. Paul goes in the opposite direction from his rivals, but closed-mindedly pulling out is as dangerous as rushing around the world with guns drawn, ears plugged, and brain on snooze. President Obama has brought us a foreign policy driven by pragmatism and respect for other cultures. He has approached the world not as a place of good and evil, but as a place filled with folks looking after their own interests, interests which can be dangerous and need to be countered but can also be compatible with ours. He has also acknowledged that the United States is not always perfect and is not promised anything. It would be a real shame to return to a place filled with terrorists trying to destroy the greatest nation in the world.