Will Romney Bring Up These Key Obama Foreign Policy Blunders During Monday Night's Debate?

As Americans around the country eagerly await Monday evening's last and, perhaps most impactful presidential debate, it is perhaps prudent to review President Obama's key foreign policy moves and stances over the last four years.

While pundits from both sides of the political aisle believe all roads will lead to Libya during the evening's debate -- and surely the terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo and Benghazi that left four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador and two Navy SEALs dead will take center stage -- there are in fact a myriad other foreign policy blunders GOP contender Mitt Romney can assail his rival on and just may if given the chance.

(For more on Obama's "Libya excuse" please see TheBlaze additional article after 6:00pm ET)

The Arab Spring

While the Middle East is no stranger to political tensions, 2010 and 2011 marked a turning point in the region, as President Obamam under the guise of NATO, intervened in Libya’s burgeoning civil war between civilian rebels and forces loyal to the late Moammar Gadhafi -- the despot who ruled Libya with an iron fist for some four decades. Likewise, the U.S. interceded again in Egypt when the Obama administration wholeheartedly signed on to help the “middle-class folks" trying to “catch a break” in Tahrir Square as they sought to oust U.S. and Israel-ally Hosni Mubarak.

In both instances, the Obama White House aided the very rebels who reports now indicate mainly comprise Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist-operatives who harbor a deep-seated animus for the West and Israel.

Alas, the newly liberated Egyptian “middle class folk” along with their Libyan counterparts thanked the U.S. for its efforts by storming its embassies in Cairo and Benghazi on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, raising a black Islamic flag declaring jihad and murdering four U.S. civil servants (and later others) while hordes of angry protesters continued a bloody rampage across both cities.

The Muslim Brotherhood 

Photo source: MEMRI

As noted earlier in this article, the Obama administration has aided the Arab Spring to the detriment of the U.S. and on the broad scale, Western interests. Al-Qaeda has filled the vacuum where Gadahfi once reined and the non-secular Muslim Brotherhood, with a penchant for sharia law and the destruction of the Jewish people has now seized power in Egypt. As stability in the Middle East balances on a razor's edge, Romney need only draw on the arsenal-full of damning foreign policy blunders perpetrated by the president to hammer the final nail in the administration's coffin.

For starts, Romney can address how newly elected Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi, while recently attending Jumah prayers (Friday Islamic prayer services) at a mosque in northern Egypt, uttered the word "amen" in response to an imam's call for the destruction of the Jewish people. During the religious service, Muslim cleric Futouh Abd Al-Nabi Mansour said:

[...] Oh Allah, absolve us of our sins, strengthen us, and grant us victory over the infidels. Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, disperse them, rend them asunder. Oh Allah, demonstrate Your might and greatness upon them. Show us Your omnipotence, oh Lord.

Following suit, Saad el-Katatny, the newly-elected chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) called for the implementation of shariah law in his acceptance speech:

Cooling relations with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Conservatives who have observed Obama's demeanor with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the last four years consider the president's treatment of America's lone ally in the Middle East -- and staunchest ally worldwide -- nothing short of an abomination. Time and again, reports have surfaced of presidential snubs where the Entebbe hero is concerned.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012. Credit: AP

During a visit to the White House in 2010, Netanyahu was reportedly "humiliated" by a series of snubs including not being afforded the opportunity to pose for traditional photographs and later to being abandoned to his own devices while the president dined in private.

Then, in 2012, just when it seemed the tensions between the two world leaders could not become any more contentious, Haartez reported that the White House declined yet another request by the Israeli PM to meet with the president during a UN conference in New York.

Of course this comes as no surprise to those who recall President Obama's embarrassing faux pas in November 2011  when a not-so-private conversation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy was captured accidentally on a live mic.  The two men were overheard disparaging the Israeli Prime Minister when Sarkozy told Obama: “I cannot stand him [Netanyahu]. He is a liar.”

Rather than exercising diplomacy, Obama quickly replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day.”

Mitt Romney has consistently condemned the president for “throwing Israel under the bus,” signifying for some that this Republican may be warmer and more accommodating to the Jewish state than even former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Romney has also been outspoken about the U.S. embassy attacks and ensuing riots across the Middle East, revealing that he would not apologize nor reward those who shed American blood.

Reducing America's nuclear arsenal 

Another point of contention on which Romney can take Obama to task is in his administration's

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks at a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. Credit: AP 

push to reduce the size of America's nuclear arsenal, which reports indicate could include between 1,000 and 1,100 warheads. The proposed cuts have fallen directly in line with the president's vision of reducing America's military prowess and eliminating nuclear weapons on the world stage -- this while Iran nears the finish-line to produce a nuclear warhead of its own.

President Obama has signed a new START Treaty with Russia to reduce weapons stockpiles and hosted the Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 in Washington

Conservatives will likely look to Romney to assail the president on his "policy of appeasement" and for emboldening America's enemies by diminishing the country's role as the world's superpower

Iran's nuclear ambitions

One issue on which conservatives have relentlessly pursued the president and would behoove Romney to carry the baton with, disregarding Iran's nuclear ambitions. Obama has favored a negotiations-oriented approach whereas Romney would seek tighter sanctions and potential military options, not allowing any room for the Islamic Republic to attain a nuclear warhead with which to wield against Israel, the U.S. and its allies.

AP 

Being endorsed by Chavez, Castro, Putin

The last in the authoritarian line-up to endorse President Obama's reelection bid is Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez, who follows suit with Castro's government in Cuba and Russian President (again) Vladimir Putin. It would serve Romney well to remind the American public of this inconvenient truth during Monday evening's foreign policy debate.

Reflections

The Obama administration's kowtowing to America's enemies will be a theme Mitt Romney will likely reiterate during a debate that is bound to set the stage for a contentious tail-end of the 2012 presidential campaign. If he can convey that American strength and exceptionalism must be manifested not just through diplomacy, but an embrace for U.S. military prowess as well; and if he can remind the American public of the myriad foreign policy missteps made by the Obama administration of the course of the last four years, Romney will successfully strip away the president's last remaining foreign policy claim to fame -- the catchphrase "Osama bin Laden is dead."