For Obama and Romney, Syria is no-win situation
Escalating violence in Syria has become the ultimate no-win political situation for President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney: The deepening crisis is impossible for their campaigns to ignore but too complex for them to articulate an easy solution.
Romney has seized on the crackdown in Syria as an opportunity to dent Obama’s foreign policy credentials, painting him as weak and indecisive in the face of more than a year of violence. But Romney’s vague prescriptions for what he would do differently have opened him to criticism from the Obama campaign that he is weighing in from the sidelines with “nothing but tough talk” while the president does the real work of managing the crisis.
The violence in Syria hasn’t captured the full attention of an American electorate consumed by the economy and other domestic issues. But the barbs being traded between the campaigns try to raise questions of leadership for the two men battling for a job filled with unexpected challenges.