Mitt Romney on Obama's Cairo Speech: No Apologies
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
In an interview this morning with former—and, possibly, future—presidential candidate Mitt Romney, I asked for his thoughts on President Obama's outreach to Muslims abroad, including the speech to the Muslim world that the president plans to make from Cairo on Thursday.
Romney's response illustrates the stark differences between Democrats and Republicans on engagement in the Muslim world and GOP fears about Obama's approach:
It's a good idea to reach out to other nations of the world, to reach out to the Muslim lands, for instance. I think there's a great deal of concern on the part of many, particularly in the Arabic world, about the ambition of Iran to become a nuclear state. I think showing our willingness to work with Arabic nations and other nations to keep Iran from pursuing that course makes a lot of sense. I applaud the willingness of the president to reach out to other nations and to speak with them.
But I draw the line by saying in reaching out to other nations we certainly should not stand up and apologize for America. America has sacrificed too much to restore liberty to people in the world to ever be in a position of constant apology. I think the president was wrong in going on Arabic TV and saying that America has in the past dictated to other nations. I think he was wrong in fact and that it was the wrong thing to say. Ahmadinejad of Iran seized upon that to demand more apologies for America....
I hope as [Obama] goes to Cairo he shows the resolve and strength of America on preserving and defending freedom and does not in any way suggest an apology. This is a time for strength and commitment to common principles, not a time for apologizing for America. We have done too much. Too many lives have been sacrificed on behalf of the freedom of other people in the world for America to engage in an apology tour.
Two huge differences between Romney's and Obama's approach toward the Muslim world.
1. Obama wants to directly respond to Muslim grievances toward the United States over issues like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Romney avoids entertaining such complaints and wants to focus on common enemies like Iran, which is more of a concern to Arab governments than to rank-in-file Muslims.
2. Romney insists that the United States avoid any apologies for actions abroad. Obama, by contrast, freely admits to American missteps when addressing Muslim audiences, as he did in his January interview with Al-Arabiya:
My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.
Which approach do you prefer?
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Tags: Egypt | speeches | Barack Obama | Mitt Romney | religion | Islam | diplomacy
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Reader Comments
I, even as a liberal Democrat, agree
more with Mitt Romney. Obama should have told the Islamic World the good America has done for Muslims: we helped out after the tsunami and saved Muslims in Eastern Europe from genocide. he should have told the Muslims why America is so respected in the west, and while we make mistakes, we are looked at as the beacon of freedom for a reason. He also lied about how many Muslims we have, he also said the Jews experienced "a" holocaust instead of "The Holocaust." He also should have mentioned that Israel is the ancient Jewish homeland as well, and not denounced them outright to their enemies. Obama DID apologize too much. We are a superpower, and he is allowing that be challenged. You know why Russia maintains power? They don't apologize, and they should, because they were the wrong side of history. But we've generally been right. Obama is basically letting the jihadists say "We're right: America IS evil, even their own President admits it!"
To Claire of California
As long as we have grown adults acting as school children ("I'm not apologizing, he hit me too!"), the world will always be at war. You don't understand reason anymore than you understand Churchill and history.
Look where conservatism has taken us! Two wars and threats encroaching all the time. Look where the free market has taken us, greed in excess! Let's cast the merchants from the temple. Let's preach reason over violence.
I thank God daily for sending us Obama.
Foreign Policy
Apologizing is the new foreign policy Obama is trying out? I'm sure the terrorists throughout the Middle East accept and are no longer going to attack us. Of course not! They see this as weakness. This gives their cause more credibility because they've been saying all along that America is evil and a bunch of dictators, and now the president of the U.S.A. backs this up saying we dictate to other countries. Al Queda wants payback for all that the West has done in the past to the Arab world, what is an apology going to do for these people who have built up a hatred for the West, willing to give their life to kill numerous innocent people?
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