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Election in America: Romney Gives Poland an Opening (Rzeczpospolita, Poland)

"It turns out that for the Romney camp, the issue of Poland is more important than the war in Afghanistan, China's economic growth or the situation in the Arab world - as these were completely forgotten during his 35-minute speech acceptance speech. ... after the politician wins the election, we will need to hold him to his word."

By Tomasz Deptuła

Translated By Agnieszka Gosiewska

September 5, 2012

Poland  Rzeczpospolita  Original Article (Polish)

Mitt Romney at Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: Will he be a better advocate for Poland than Barack Obama?

Thanks to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, U.S. foreign policy toward Poland, is no longer only a secondary or tertiary concern of American diplomacy. The question is: can we take an advantage of the situation?

Foreign policy during a party convention is usually a secondary issue, unless America is involved in a conflict bringing harsh media coverage. Not surprisingly, the Republican candidate for president devoted just a few sentences to diplomacy in his convention speech in Tampa. Mr. Romney spoke of the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the current administration throwing Israel under the bus, easing sanctions on Cuba and leaving Poland in the lurch by abandoning missile defense. He also announced a hardening of policy toward Russia.

Poles already heard these comments from Romney during his visit to Gdansk and Warsaw. But now he said them to a prime-time audience of tens of millions of Americans on Thursday night, when they tuned in to hear what the official Republican candidate for president had to say.

It turns out that for the Romney camp, the issue of Poland is more important than the war in Afghanistan, China's economic growth or the situation in the Arab world- these were completely forgotten in his 35-minute speech.

Of course, his is a policy that depends most of all on who receives the most votes in the November election: at this stage of the campaign, every word uttered has a specific public purpose. Mr. Romneys recent visit to the Vistula River showed that the voices of Americans of Polish origin are important to his electoral chiefs of staff.

Posted by Worldmeets.US

The question is: what lessens should Polish diplomacy draw from this? These are obvious. Mr. Obama is not destined to win. In Washington, we still have the unresolved question of abolishing visas for Poles and increasing U.S. security guarantees for Poland, not to mention access to capital and new technologies for exploiting shale gas [fracking]. This last item would thwart Russias plans. [Moscow would prefer that Poland continue to by gas from Russia].

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Although Polish diplomacy needs to focus on European issues, it has a lot to gain in D.C. Years ago, during his stay in the United States, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski associated himself with the conservative community and groups like the American Enterprise Institute and the New Atlantic Initiative. He should have little trouble establishing closer contacts with Mr. Romneys camp, without giving up on dialogue with the current administration. And after the politician wins the election, we will need to hold him to his word.



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