The attack on the consulate in Libya was a main focus of Romney's speech. Mitt: Obama has made U.S. less safe

LEXINGTON, Va. — Using his harshest language yet, Mitt Romney charged Monday that President Barack Obama has made America less safe during his time in office, citing the recent attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Libya as a case in point.

In a tough foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute here, Romney linked the attacks in Benghazi — including the killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens — to a broader critique of Obama’s foreign policy as naïve and weak.


“When we look at the Middle East today — Iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in Syria threatening to destabilize the region, with violent extremists on the march and with an American ambassador and three others dead likely at the hands of Al Qaeda affiliates — it is clear that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now than when the president took office,” Romney told 500 cadets and local supporters in a 23-minute speech. “America’s security and the cause of freedom cannot afford four more years like the last four years.”

( PHOTOS: 10 slams on Obama and Benghazi)

He mentioned the killing of Osama bin Laden – Obama’s biggest overseas triumph – but Romney credited “military and intelligence professionals.”

The former Massachusetts governor also criticized Obama for ending the war in Iraq, one of the president’s proudest accomplishments.

“America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence,” he said. “The president tried — he tried, but he also failed — to secure a responsible and gradual draw-down that would have better secured our gains.”

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Romney also outlined what he’d do as president in a host of hot spots, trying to fill in a foreign policy vision that has been criticized as opaque.

He said he would draw clearer red lines regarding Iran’s drive to develop nuclear weapons: “I will not hesitate to impose new sanctions on Iran and will tighten the sanctions we currently have. I will restore the permanent presence of aircraft carrier task forces in both the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf region — and work with Israel to increase our military assistance and coordination.”

As a counterweight to Iranian influence, Romney supports the arming of rebels to defeat the Syrian regime and building relationships with the insurgents so that they can eventually become allies: “I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.”

( See also: Romney's foreign policy speech (full text, video))

Romney explained that America has friends and enemies, but that some exist in a gray area in between. He would make foreign aid to Egypt conditional on the new Islamist government building democratic institutions and maintaining peace with Israel.

In Afghanistan, Romney reiterated his support for a “a real and successful transition” to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014, but he kept the door open to an indefinite U.S. military presence if the country becomes a terrorist sanctuary.

“I will evaluate conditions on the ground and weigh the best advice of our military commanders,” he said. “And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects but to the security of the nation.”

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Romney also maintained that he supports a two-state solution in Israel; video of a closed fundraiser in May found him suggesting that the peace process was doomed because the Palestinian government is not serious about a peaceful solution.

“In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new president will bring the chance to begin anew,” he said.

Trying to link the speech to the economy, Romney promised to push hard for more trade. He criticizes Obama for not signing a new free-trade agreement while president. The campaign said he will get back to an economic-centered message for the remainder of the week.

Besides Virginia’s role as a prized swing state, campaign officials said they chose VMI as the venue because George Marshall — the former Army chief of staff during WWII who became secretary of state and then defense during the early years of the Cold War — is an alumnus. Romney opened and closed his speech with homage to Marshall, quoting Winston Churchill to praise Marshall for always fighting against “defeatism, discouragement and disillusion.”

Romney advisers say Romney is trying to position his doctrine as the continuation of a bipartisan foreign policy tradition going back to Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan that emphasizes U.S. strength.

The speech grew out of an internal debate at Romney’s Boston headquarters about how much time to spend on foreign policy in an election that will be decided on the economy and how forcefully to knock the president after a poorly timed initial statement on the deaths of U.S. officials in Libya that backfired.

In his speech here Monday, Romney stressed that he was not holding Obama directly responsible for the murder of Americans overseas.

“But it is our responsibility and the responsibility of the president to use America’s great power to shape history — not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events,” Romney said. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama.”

Romney said he believes that the attacks in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, were “likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland” on Sept. 11, 2001. He said he would “vigorously pursue” those responsible.

“This latest assault cannot be blamed on a reprehensible video insulting Islam, despite the administration’s attempts to convince us of that for so long,” Romney said. “No, as the administration has finally conceded, these attacks were the deliberate work of terrorists who use violence to impose their dark ideology on others … and who seek to wage perpetual war on the West.”

“I know the president hopes for a safer, freer and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States,” Romney said. “I share this hope. But hope is not a strategy.”

The criticism arrives on the heels of the White House changing its explanation for the attacks. At first, it described them as a spontaneous response to an anti-Muslim video circulating on YouTube. But several high-ranking administration officials, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, subsequently called the attack the work of terrorists.

The Obama campaign pushed back on Romney’s speech with a new campaign ad that highlighted the gaffes in his summer foreign trip, and they released a memo accusing him of holding out-of-the-mainstream views that often put him to the right of George W. Bush on foreign policy.

“If Mitt Romney wants to have a debate about foreign policy, we have a message for him: bring it on,” Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement. “He’s erratically shifted positions on every major foreign policy issue, including intervening in Libya, which he was against before he was for … It’s clear that on every measure, Mitt Romney fails the commander-in-chief test.”

Romney advisers responded that the speech makes Romney look presidential and the attack is part of a broader narrative.

“It’s a recognition that strength is not provocative. It’s weakness that’s provocative,” said Romney adviser Rich Williamson, a former assistant secretary of state and a special envoy to Sudan under George W. Bush. “It’s part of a larger mosaic of the failed leadership.”

Williamson told reporters on a Sunday conference call that Romney believes that Obama’s global approach has been too reflexive and simplistic.

“While drones and drone attacks are worthwhile and it’s good to kill bad guys, you fundamentally misunderstand this struggle if you think that’s an answer to it,” he said. “It’s not. It’s just one of the tools, and the governor’s going to outline a broader menu and a broader strategy and provide the American people with a clearer vision of the choice they must make on Election Day.”

Romney has spoken on foreign policy, but not necessarily very clearly.

The former Massachusetts governor has delivered a spate of speeches that the campaign billed as significant: at the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, during his summer trip abroad, at The Citadel and most recently at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. In his stump speech, Romney talks a great deal about the need to show “leadership,” but he rarely goes into much depth.