In foreign-policy debate Obama trumps Romney
An aggressive Obama brings Romney's dithering on foreign policies to the fore
President Obama and Republican Party’s candidate Mitt Romney wrapped up a series of debates on October 23 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, with Obama having the last laugh. This debate was centred around the foreign policies that US has adopted in the last four years.
Regarding Iran, Romney said, “We’re four years closer to a nuclear Iran and we should not have wasted these four years.” Obama countered saying, “As long as I’m President of the United States, Iran will not get a nuclear weapon.” The New York Times said that Obama “came armed with a host of zingers”.
One of them is his reply to Romney’s take on US handling of Syria where he said: “Governor Romney said he doesn’t have different ideas and that’s because we’re doing exactly what we should be doing, which is try to promote a moderate Syrian leadership and an effective transition so that we get the Syrian President Assad out.”
Both the candidates were firm on China’s trade practices though. Romney was particularly stern: “China has an interest that’s very much like ours and that is they want a stable world, they don’t want war. We can be a partner with China. We don’t have to be an adversary in any shape or form.” Obama said: “China is both an adversary but also a potential partner if it’s following the rules. So my attitude coming into office was that we’re going to insist that China plays by the same rules as everybody else.” The Chinese media scoffed at this saying that, “Willing or not, Democratic or Republican, the next US president shall have to tone down his get-tough-on-China rhetoric made along the campaign trail.”
The debate really exploded when both candidates debated Afghanistan. Romney said, “I congratulate him on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership in al Qaeda. But we can’t kill our way out of this mess. We’re going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the world of Islam and other parts of the world to reject this radical violent extremism.”” Obama latched onto this to say, “I am glad that you recognise that al Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked ‘what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America?’, you said ‘Russia’! Not al Qaeda, you said ‘Russia’”.
Among the various polls, everyone proclaimed Obama as the clear winner. A CBS News poll shows that Obama won handily against Romney (53:24 %)