Powell to Romney: “Come on, Mitt, Think”

David Streeter — May 23, 2012 – 5:01 pm | Foreign Policy | Mitt Romney Comments (0) Add a comment

In multiple MSNBC appearances, former Secretary of State Colin Powell called out presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for some of his recent foreign policy statements.

In particular, Powell took issue with Romney’s questionable designation of Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” According to MSNBC:

One of the GOP’s foreign-policy heavyweights, Colin Powell, took Mitt Romney to task for calling Russia the United States’ ‘No. 1 geopolitical foe.’

‘Come on, Mitt, think. That isn’t the case,’ Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning.

Powell added, ‘He’s been catching a lot of heck from the more regular GOP foreign affairs community. We’re kind of taken aback by it. How can you—? Come on. Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United   States of America.’

Powell also “warned Romney against hyperbole on foreign policy, from Russia to Iran”:

‘I think he needs to not just accept these cataclysmic pronouncements,’ Powell said. ‘He needs to really think carefully about these [statements].’

Powell said Russia had the GDP of a mid-size European country and noted that Russia and China ‘need to have a good relationship with us.’

He added, ‘Let’s not go creating enemies where none need exist… let’s not hyperbolize the situation.’

Powell also advocated talking to Iran, played down the notion that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon, and suggested it was possible to allow Iran to produce nuclear power and stop them from going further to create a weapon.

‘I don’t know what Mr. Romney would prefer to do’ as it relates to Iran, Powell said, noting that there weren’t many alternatives to talking to them. Powell warned that there couldn’t be ‘lofty expectations’ in talks with Iran and that it couldn’t be trusted, but stressed, ‘They’re totally isolated.’

Click here to read MSNBC’s full report of Powell’s words for Romney, as well as to watch the videos from his appearances. 

 

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