Romney Advisor & Bush Spokesman Give Obama Credit He Deserves on Israel and Iran

David Streeter — March 29, 2012 – 11:23 am | Election 2012 | Foreign Policy | GOP Presidential Candidates 2012 | Iran | Israel | Mitt Romney | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

JTA’s Ron Kampeas reported that an advisor to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer recently gave President Barack Obama credit he deserves for supporting Israel’s security and leading the global effort to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Kampeas reported:

1.) Michael Hayden, the intel chief in the last Bush administration who is now a senior foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, writes on CNN that Obama has adopted his old boss’s policy of preemption—and suggests he has the gumption to make the decision:

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta probably gave the clearest administration statement when he said that if “we get intelligence that they’re proceeding with developing a nuclear weapon, then we will take whatever steps are necessary to stop it.”

That, combined with the president’s repeated statements that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is “unacceptable,” surprisingly aligns this administration with the George W. Bush administration’s doctrine of pre-emption. That doctrine famously described it as a duty to “anticipate and counter threats, using all elements of national power, before the threats can do grave damage.”

Combining “unacceptable” with “whatever steps are necessary” seems to put Iran’s possession of a weapon—or, more accurately, an Iranian decision to pursue a weapon—in that doctrine’s category of “hostile acts by our adversaries.”

(snip)

The president showed that he could act in the face of ambiguity when he launched the Abbottabad raid to kill Osama bin Laden. This one will be even more difficult….

2.) A few weeks back, the Republican Jewish Coalition had a call-in for members, with Ari Fleischer. 

The former George W. Bush spokesman was not at all ambivalent or ambiguous: He wants Obama out as of next Jan. 21. Jewish voters, he said were feeling ‘buyers’ remorse’ for a man he depicted as hapless on the economy and cool on Israel.

But, among friends, Fleischer was also unguarded, giving Obama points for sustaining a close defense relationship:

Did President Obama retreat from military commitments to Israel, he did not retreat—he continued the trend, and I praise him for that.

He also said ‘I credit President Obama for increasing sanctions.’

That doesn’t exactly jibe with the narrative among GOP candidates, that Obama was reluctantly dragooned into enhanced sanctions by Congress. But Fleischer’s seen the inside of the executive branch, and is likely familiar with how an adversarial Congress is prone to depict its foreign policy turf wars with the White House as standing firm vs. fecklessness.

Matt Brooks, the RJC director, ran insta-polls while the call was ongoing—at one point, he said, there were over 6,000 callers on—and he asked Fleischer to rank Obama as pro-Israel, neutral or hostile to Israel before he asked the same of the callers.

Fleischer suggested he knew he was going to be in the minority when he said he did not perceive Obama as hostile. ‘I don’t think he’s hostile,’ he said. ‘He would like to be the great man in the middle.’ He was right about being in the minority…

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