Why Obama Is Tougher on Iran Than Romney Could Ever Be

[EleazarV]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/07/why-obama-is-tougher-on-iran-than-romney-could-ever-be/260404/

The unilateral use of force in the Middle East for a liberal Democrat like Obama is a credential; for a conservative Republican like Romney, it could be an albatross. I argued in a previous column that Romney is more likely than Obama to oversee a revitalized Middle East peace process. That's because conservatives are better positioned to make peace; liberals are generally better positioned to launch preventive strikes at the nuclear programs of rogue nations. We know that U.S. voters, and world leaders, allow Obama extraordinary leeway when it comes to deadly drone strikes, precisely because of his politics, character and background. Romney will get no comparative slack.

An Obama leadership will be great excellent if and when the time comes to go to war with Iran. Obama is well honest, spoken, intelligent, even attractive and with Him at our helm, We will have the world eating out of our hand if Obama is to lead the war against one of the world's most reactionary regimes.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

1. I'm confused

Care to elaborate your point? I don't exactly understand the author's viewpoint that "conservatives are better positioned to make peace; liberals are generally better positioned to launch preventative strikes at the nuclear problems of rogue nations." (when was exactly the last time conservatives sought to make peace and liberals launched preventative strikes?)


Care to explain?

BTW welcome to DU.

[EleazarV]

3. He's not saying that the conservatives have ever made peace, or that liberals have ever launched pre

He's saying that they're better positioned because no republican really wants to be seen as the next Bush. Therefore they will try to avoid doing the same things that Bush did if the get elected. If Romney invaded Iran he would have no support and be a pariah (and rightly so). But I think that with Obama in office, if push came to shove and we had to go into Iran we would have much more support.

So when he talks about better positioning, he is really saying who will get more support by donig what.

[elleng]

4. Was wondering about this too.

Pretty convoluted way of saying what you're saying he said!
welcome.

[JoePhilly]

6. He'd be exactly the same as Bush ... a puppet for the neocons and the oil industry.

Mitt does not care about going to war ... its just a hostile takeover to him and the GOP masters of the universe.

Mitt and those who support him get richer if we go to war, regardless of the outcome of that war. And the American poor and middle class would get to pay for it.

[CTyankee]

8. I think it's the old "Only Nixon could have normalized relations with China" because the liberals

were too afraid of being called "soft on communism" and no one could call Dick Nixon that.

As far as I know, I think there was some truth to that...

[JoePhilly]

2. Obama isn't going to start a war with Iran. No matter how much the neocons pray for it.

Romney isn't going to become President by saber rattling for a 3rd, unfunded, neocon wet dream war in the middle east.

And the idea that Romney would "oversee a revitalized Middle East peace process" is ridiculous.

Makes about as much sense as Cheney saying the Iraqis would greet us as liberators.

[elleng]

5. Right, JoeP.

[riverbendviewgal]

7. The author Jeffrey Goldberg

advocated the invasion of Iraq....seems pro republican to me.

[EleazarV]

9. I didn't know that

I suppose I could have misread the article. At first glance, it seemed to be pro-Obama.

Anyways I am not in favor of invading Iran unless Israel specfically asks us to be there.