In the race to the primary elections, the seven candidates vying for the Republican nomination have engaged in a neoconservative bidding war on foreign policy issues.

Mitt Romney, second in the polls and considered one of the more moderate candidates, called for "covert actions within Syriam, to get regime change there."

Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania, considered that Washington was behind the recent explosion of an Iranian missiles deposit and pledged to continue along the same path should he move into the White House, while in the same breath advocating for targeted killings: "Any foreign scientist working in Iran on this nuclear program will be termed an enemy combatant and will be subject (...), like Osama bin Laden, to be taken out by the United States government. There have been scientists turning up dead in Russia and in Iran. There have been computer viruses. There have been problems at their facility. I hope that the United States has been involved with that," he said.

Tea Party’s muse Michele Bachman, for her part, believes that the practice of waterboarding should be resumed. President Obama had put an end to this form of torture when he took office in early 2009.

Texas Governor Rick Perry stated before the Republican Jewish Coalition that "our laws come from the ancient laws of the Torah" and considers that the U.S. should help Israel attack Iran.

The medal for neoconservative rhetoric should undoubtedly go to Newt Gingrich, currently leading in the polls. He stuck to his guns following his controversial comments calling Palestinians an "invented people and terrorists" during a debate in Des Moines.

He vowed to fund "all dissident groups in Iran" and sabotage the country’s largest refinery.

He also criticized the current State Department "for dismantling the moral Judeo-Christian heritage" while promising to place neocon John Bolton at the helm, instead of Hilary Clinton.

The former speaker of the House of Representatives indicated that, as potential President of the United States, he sees himself "in many ways as being pretty close to Bibi Netanyahu," the current Israeli prime minister.Bibi’s a really tough guy, and he’s a guy who puts Israel’s security first," he said.

Finally, Mr. Gingrich intends to ask Congress to give back their "freedom" to U.S. intelligence services, implying a retraction of the current presidential ban to assassinate foreign leaders who challenge U.S. hegemony.

Beyond the usual rhetoric Zionist and anti-Iranian rhetoric designed to curry favor with the powerful pro-Israel lobby, what emerges from these statements is that now candidates for the White House openly embrace the criminal dimension of their country’s foreign policy.