The foul-mouthed actor tells a profanity-laced rhyming bedtime story calling on Americans to get out and vote for Barack Obama in November.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has accused President Barack Obama of overseeing the decline of America’s standing in the world. But Mr Obama’s substantial national security track record shows he preserves American might by wielding it carefully.Although voters say the economy is foremost on their minds ahead of November’s election, developments in Iran, Syria and the eurozone could easily become political wild cards.
And Mr Obama’s national security record includes meaningful accomplishments that hint at how he might handle them.On his watch, the US eliminated Osama bin Laden and is nearing the strategic defeat of al-Qaeda. The US has increased political and economic pressure on Iran, ended the Iraq war and begun shifting US engagement in Afghanistan.It has renewed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratified a new strategic arms treaty with Russia, strengthened the US posture across Asia while managing the complex relationship with China, and ushered a new country, South Sudan, onto the world stage.
Mr Obama has also had his share of misses.
He failed to close Guantanamo Bay, though his pledge to do so in large part earned him a Nobel Peace Prize. Climate change has virtually disappeared from the administration’s political agenda. The Middle East peace process has stagnated despite a substantial political commitment.
Mr Romney discounts Mr Obama’s record as one of American leadership in decline. He portrays engagement as apology, and caution as confusion.
Limiting deployments
But Mr Romney surely knows that interests and values compete as often as they coincide.
In the aftermath, Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger advanced a “doctrine” to guide the future deployment of US forces.
Military forces should be committed as a last resort only when vital interests are at stake, when they can achieve clear political and military objectives, and when they have the backing of Congress and the American people.
Iraq’s excessive costs
Colin Powell, then chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, America’s top uniformed military officer, further refined US thinking after the 1991 Gulf War.
In Iraq, George W Bush violated most tenets of the Weinberger and Powell doctrines. He failed to attract meaningful international support for the 2003 invasion, failed to integrate military and political objectives, and failed to anticipate the rise of Iran after Saddam Hussein’s fall.
And for what the conflict did achieve, the US paid excessive costs in blood, treasure, and international standing.
Mr Obama’s military actions – ending the Iraq war, establishing an exit ramp for Afghanistan, intervening in Libya but not in Syria – do not represent a new doctrine. Rather, they reaffirm and further refine the logic behind the use of American military force that has influenced, if not strictly guided, US presidents in their military interventions since Vietnam.
( BBC NEWS )
