Romney Knows Absurdity

Former governor and current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-MA) spoke before the Republican Jewish Coalition of Florida yesterday and said "today we have individuals who believe that the cause of the challenges in the Middle East is the conflict in Israel with the Palestinians, and that if somehow we could just have the Baker-Hamilton Commission imposed and we could just settle things between the Palestinians and the Israelis, why everything would be fine in the Middle East." He added, "the idea that somehow boundaries between Israel and the Palestinian authority are what’s causing the challenges in the Middle East is patently absurd."
However, that's not what the Iraq Study Group Report said. That report put it this way:
Iraq cannot be addressed effectively in isolation from other major regional issues, interests, and unresolved conflicts. To put it simply, all key issues in the Middle East—the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq, Iran, the need for political and economic reforms, and extremism and terrorism—are inextricably linked. In addition to supporting stability in Iraq, a comprehensive diplomatic offensive—the New Diplomatic Offensive—should address these key regional issues. By doing so, it would help marginalize extremists and terrorists, promote U.S. values and interests, and improve America’s global image.
In this brief paragraph, the report summed up and underscored the complexity of conditions in the Middle East. Apparently, in his pandering remarks to a Republican Jewish audience, Romney has no time for either complexity or nuance.

Of course, his speech wouldn't have been complete without the invocation of Hitler and Nazis. He argued that appeasers accepted the "press releases" of Hitler which, according to CBS News, "said that he [Hitler] merely wanted to unite German-speaking peoples, rather than eliminate an entire race," to which Romney retorted, "the consequences of that accommodation of his press releases was devastating to the entire world, and most devastating to millions of Jews."
With "press releases" and appeasement on his mind, perhaps Romney was thinking not only of the Iraq Study Group Report and Hitler, but also Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran (Romney had earlier suggested Paul "should not be reading as many of Ahmadinejad's press releases."), Osama bin-Laden or--yikes!--even George Bush.
It was, after all, President Bush who said at the Annapolis Conference in November, 2007, "the time is right because a battle is underway for the future of the Middle East -- and we must not cede victory to the extremists. With their violent actions and contempt for human life, the extremists are seeking to impose a dark vision on the Palestinian people -- a vision that feeds on hopelessness and despair to sow chaos in the Holy Land. If this vision prevails, the future of the region will be endless terror, endless war, and endless suffering." (emphasis added)
Bush, along with the Iraq Study Group, sees a connection (albeit late in the day) between that specific issue and the broader Middle East, since he noted that "the future of the region" is at stake. Indeed, he went a step further to say, "and when liberty takes root in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions across the Middle East who want their societies built on freedom and peace and hope."

Which brings up another matter. Romney referred to the argument that the Israeli/Palestinian issue is at the heart of Middle East instability (implicitly endorsed by Bush, no less) as "patently absurd." Can this be the same candidate who "blasted Huckabee for calling Bush's foreign policy arrogant and indicative of a 'bunker mentality'"? The candidate who said in January "the president is not arrogant. The president does not subject -- or is not subject to a bunker mentality. The president has acted out of his desire to keep America safe, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for keeping this country safe over the last six years"?
Yet this same Romney, in a debate earlier this month in South Carolina, said, "I have had the chance to do almost 200 town meetings across the country ... and I keep hearing the same thing, which is that Washington ... seems incapable of dealing with the challenges that we face globally and here at home," before concluding, "I know how to bring change. And I will change Washington."
Or give us more of the same confusion, lack of clarity and, oh, leadership.