Last night Romney and Obama sparred for the last time in
Boca Raton, Florida attempting to put on their best show to woo the nation.
Although I do believe that the debate was very close, with Obama having the
edge, a CBS instant poll put it much more pro-Obama. These are the results:
Obama 53%, Romney 23% or a tie: 24%. This is far larger than I would have
thought, but it may not have much of a lasting effect. Most Americans care
about the economy more than anything else; Bill Clinton didn’t say “It’s the
economy stupid” for nothing!
Although the debate was built to be about foreign policy, it
was basically a discussion on the Middle East. America’s close allies in Europe
never got a mention, the special relationship never came up, the BRIC countries
(bar China) didn’t get discussed. Latin America was largely ignored, the drug
wars in Mexico didn’t even get mentioned despite the escalating violence and
instability. Sub-saharan Africa was not even mentioned as well as America’s
alliances in the South-East Asia and Pacific region. Another big miss was the
economic crisis in Europe, considering its potential to send the world economy
into freefall, its absence was notable. So basically the whole 90 minutes was
spent on the Middle East, in particular Iran and Israel. Iran was mentioned 47 times,
Israel 35 and America’s (supposed) closest ally, the UK was only mentioned
twice.
The issue of Iran last night was an interesting topic, Romney
accused Obama of going soft on Iran. He said that Iran saw America as being
weak. What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make, Obama easily took this
fabrication apart. The fact that Iran is the most isolated and the weakest it’s
ever been is a testament to Obama’s leadership on the international stage. Iran’s
currency has lost 80% of its value since the new sanctions came in place and
its oil exports have plummeted to record lows. The main discussion around Iran centred
on its nuclear programme and how to stop it. Neither candidate fully told us quite how they’d stop Iran getting
nuclear weapons. All we know is just how bad it would be if they did get WMDs.
Obama said that the current sanctions were working very well, having caused the
Iranian economy to collapse.
On the topic of Israel, Romney was very critical of Obama,
when Obama took his first foreign trip as president he went to the Middle East
without visiting Israel. Romney said that had emboldened Israel’s enemies and
made America look weak. For some historical context no Republican president has
ever visited Israel during their first term, not even Ronald Reagan. Obama’s
main reply to the claims are the fact that America and Israel are sharing an
unprecedented amount of military technology and information.
Beyond Israel and Iran, other Middle Eastern topics included
Libya, Egypt and Syria. If you were watching last week’s debate you will
remember the Benghazi question, the one Romney totally botched. This week the
focus on Libya was not on Benghazi, rather the revolution that had taken place
in 2011 that overthrew Gaddafi. Both candidates, last night, agreed that the
administration had done the right thing in Libya. Yet Obama to time to remind
Romney of how, during the Libyan intervention, he had accused Obama of ‘mission
creep’, suggesting America should pull out. In regards to Libya’s neighbour,
Egypt, Romney criticised Obama for not reacting to the revolution faster. This is
despite Obama being one of the first world leaders to call for the dictator,
President Mubarak, to resign. When they spoke on Syria Romney seemed to have
the same position as Obama! They both support the rebels, they both would
consider arming rebels (but they both worry about arms falling into extremists’
hands) and they both ruled out the prospect of an intervention which involved a
land invasion. Although Romney declared it a disgrace that Assad was still in
power and that Obama should do more, he failed to articulate what Obama should
be doing. The discussion on Syria turned downright stupid when Romney said the
following:
“Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab World. It’s their route to the
sea.”
If you have a basic understanding of the geography of the
Middle East you’ll know that this is an extremely bizarre statement. Firstly Iran
has no border with Syria at all; Iran
would need to go through Turkey or Iraq if they wished to take that route to
the sea. Yet more importantly is the fact that Iran has 2,440km of coastline
(according to the CIA World Factbook). Just take a look at the following map!
Just let that sink in, Romney doesn’t even remotely know the
geography of the Middle East. This is something every Congressman and Senator
should know, never mind the President.
Somewhat surprisingly, an important part of all three presidential
debates is the issue of what to do about China! For Obama this would be a relatively
easy area to score some points, Obama has doubled exports to China, as well as
this he has brought twice as many cases to the WTO of Chinese trade malpractice
as Bush did in eight years. More importantly, he has won every case that has
been decided. When Obama brought one particular case to try and save 1,000
jobs, Romney called him “protectionist”. Yet despite these facts Romney
continues to try and attack Obama on the issue.
Overall I feel that Obama probably did slightly better, but
it will not be foreign policy that decides this election.
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| Romney and Obama in the Midst of the debate |
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