Romney isn’t out to make the world swoon

Before his VFW remarks, Romney was largely reticent on foreign policy, and his campaign concentrated on the economy. But he is not running for Treasury secretary. Even in a time of economic distress and high unemployment, foreign policy cannot be ignored.

The Obama campaign has made much of the president’s presumed mastery of that domain. In 2008, he promised that he would bring the war in Iraq to an end, and he has done so. Osama bin Laden and American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki have been hunted down and killed on Obama’s watch.

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In his own speech to the VFW on Monday, Obama trumpeted his record on fighting terrorism. He had made it a priority, he said, “to take out the terrorists who had attacked us on 9/11. . . . Since I took office, we’ve worked with our allies and our partners to take out more top al-Qaeda leaders than any time since 9/11.”

Presidential campaigns are, of course, not about truth. And a candidate’s ambitious promises are generally cast aside once he assumes the burdens of office. As a presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy, it should be recalled, promised to close the missile gap with the Soviet Union. But for the United States, there was no gap to close. It was the Soviets who were at a huge disadvantage, a paltry three scores of missiles for an American arsenal of more than 2,000. In the same vein, candidate Obama vowed to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, repair “brand America” abroad, drain anti-Americanism from the Islamic world and build trust between Pakistan and the United States.

But these promises have been largely forgotten in the exercise of power. Guantanamo is still open, and anti-Americanism in the Islamic world did not dissipate when Bush left the White House. In a supreme note of irony, the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which was once held up as proof of Bush’s poor standing in foreign lands, recently bore bad tidings for Obama:

“In a number of strategically important Muslim nations,” the June report says, “America’s image has not improved during the Obama presidency. In fact, America’s already low 2008 ratings have slipped even further in Jordan and Pakistan.”

The Romney campaign is not out to win hearts and minds in Karachi and Cairo; that sort of public diplomacy is of no interest to the candidate and his bid for the presidency.

“I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced,” Romney said Tuesday, emphasizing American exceptionalism — probably because Obama has often equivocated about it.

“I believe in American exceptionalism,” the president said in France in 2009, “just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” The world was changing, Obama observed; nations the world over were contending for influence, and no single power could deem itself superior to others.

This difference is of no small importance. Ideology has been played down in Obama’s foreign policy. By the early signs, there would be more of it under Romney. But continuity would probably carry the day on Afghanistan and Iran.