Mitt Romney will make a good senator, and he had fine points in his critique of President Trump, but he has a glaring oversight: The senator-elect was far too kind to the foreign policy of Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
Romney does not mention Obama by name, but a central contention of his article is that U.S. global leadership is crucial. Noting rising great power competition by China and Russia, Romney observes the ingredients of U.S.-led international stability: “Our economic and military strength was part of that, of course, but our enduring commitment to principled conduct in foreign relations, and to the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice, was even more esteemed. Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world.”
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To a degree, this is true. But Romney should have added a few words to his final sentence here. Perhaps, “Just as the distance between President Obama’s words and actions invited adversarial challenge, Trump’s words and actions have caused dismay around the world.”
[Read more: Trump responds to Mitt Romney: ‘I won big, and he didn’t’]
The context matters because Romney has the unique credibility to make this assertion. As the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, Romney’s finest moment came with his bold identification of Vladimir Putin’s threat to America. Obama arrogantly scorned his opponent for this. “The 1980s,” Obama told Romney “are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Then came the slaughter of MH-17, the obliteration of Aleppo and many smaller Syrian towns, and greater Russian aggression against NATO. These threats rose in clear view of the Obama White House, but without challenge. Romney should have noted this, because Obama’s failure to confront these challenges invited Putin’s aggression during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
When it came to Obama and the Russians, there was little sign of America’s “enduring commitment to … the rights of all people to freedom and equal justice.” Indeed, that commitment was burned in the wreckage of MH-17 and the rubble of Aleppo.
Do not misunderstand me. None of this is to excuse Trump of his responsibilities in the present. The president’s sporadic attention to detail has engendered a high-risk withdrawal from Syria, and Putin’s sense that he can push the line. Trump’s justified defense spending pressure on NATO is also badly served by his equivocation on NATO treaty commitments. And while Trump’s China policy gets the strategic part of the equation right, he remains too unconcerned with human rights atrocities such as Beijing’s Uighur policy. However, Romney is wrong to imply that Trump has burned U.S. strategic credibility from a previous bastion of strength.
To better appraise presidential leadership, Romney should have charted a clearer path between Trump and his predecessor.
