McCain advises Romney on Middle East policy

From the New Hampshire Union Leader:

MANCHESTER -- Sen. John McCain said Monday that Mitt Romney should continue to aggressively criticize President Barack Obama's Middle East policy, regardless of push-back by Obama, his campaign and the “liberals in the media.”

The Arizona Republican, in New Hampshire to host veterans-oriented town halls at , said a weak Obama administration strategy in the region led to the violence that resulted in the deaths of Americans in Libya and continues in capitals in the Arab world.

McCain said that the administration's approach of blaming the violence on an anti-Islam video is “either a degree of politicization or a degree of naïveté that's dangerous to the future of this country.”

In an interview, he offered advice to Romney:

“When Americans' lives are taken or at risk, it's incumbent upon all of us who think it's due to a failure of leadership to speak up. If that's criticized by the media, we cannot be muzzled by liberals in the media.”

McCain encouraged Romney “to give an overall foreign policy speech, beginning in 2009 when (Obama) refused to speak up for the million-and-a-half demonstrators in Tehran who were chanting, 'Obama, Obama. Are you with us or are you with them?'

“These Iranians have been killing Americans since the bombing of the barracks in Beirut in 1980,” said McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.