US Foreign Policy: The Election Barely Matters
There was never going to be a big debate on U.S. foreign policy at the Democratic National Convention. It will be whatever Barack Obama say it should be, and besides, the delegates in Charlotte weren’t interested.
It’s the economy, stupid, and two months before the election nobody wants to get sidetracked into discussing a peripheral issue like American foreign policy. The only people who really care about that at the moment are foreigners and the U.S. military —— and even they are not following the election with bated breath, because few of them believe that a change of president could fundamentally change the way the U.S. relates to the rest of the world.
Although the Republicans do their best to paint Obama as a wild-eyed radical who is dismantling America’s defenses, he has actually been painfully orthodox in his foreign policy. He loves Israel to bits, he did not shut down the Afghan war (or Guantanamo), he uses drones to kill U.S. enemies (and sometimes, anybody else who is nearby), and he tamely signs off on a $700 billion defense budget.
How can Mitt Romney top that? He could say he loves Israel even more. In fact, he does say that, promising to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. But that is purely gesture politics, since almost no other countries do, and in practice Obama gives Israel almost everything it wants already.