Video: President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney debated Israel and Iran during the final debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.
ROMNEY: Well, my strategy is pretty straightforward, which is to go after the bad guys, to make sure we do our very best to interrupt them, to -- to kill them, to take them out of the picture.
But my strategy is broader than that. That’s -- that’s important, of course. But the key that we’re going to have to pursue is a -- is a pathway to get the Muslim world to be able to reject extremism on its own.
President Obama on Monday criticized Gov. Mitt Romney’s view of the national security threats at the final presidential debate.
More from PostPolitics
“It is what it is,” the former New York congressman said.
FACT CHECKER | A GOP lawmaker cited Harry Reid’s false claim that Mitt Romney paid no taxes at the IRS hearing. He asked how Reid “obtained” his information.
“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us,” the president said.
We don’t want another Iraq, we don’t want another Afghanistan. That’s not the right course for us. The right course for us is to make sure that we go after the -- the people who are leaders of these various anti-American groups and these -- these jihadists, but also help the Muslim world.
And how do we do that? A group of Arab scholars came together, organized by the U.N., to look at how we can help the -- the world reject these -- these terrorists. And the answer they came up with was this:
One, more economic development. We should key our foreign aid, our direct foreign investment, and that of our friends, we should coordinate it to make sure that we -- we push back and give them more economic development.
Number two, better education.
Number three, gender equality.
Number four, the rule of law. We have to help these nations create civil societies.
But what’s been happening over the last couple of years is, as we’ve watched this tumult in the Middle East, this rising tide of chaos occur, you see Al Qaida rushing in, you see other jihadist groups rushing in. And -- and they’re throughout many nations in the Middle East.
ROMNEY: It’s wonderful that Libya seems to be making some progress, despite this terrible tragedy.
But next door, of course, we have Egypt. Libya’s 6 million population; Egypt, 80 million population. We want -- we want to make sure that we’re seeing progress throughout the Middle East. With Mali now having North Mali taken over by Al Qaida; with Syria having Assad continuing to -- to kill, to murder his own people, this is a region in tumult.
And, of course, Iran on the path to a nuclear weapon, we’ve got real (inaudible).
SCHIEFFER: We’ll get to that, but let’s give the president a chance.
OBAMA: Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that Al Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not Al Qaida; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.
But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.
You say that you’re not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq. But just a few weeks ago, you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now. And the -- the challenge we have -- I know you haven’t been in a position to actually execute foreign policy -- but every time you’ve offered an opinion, you’ve been wrong. You said we should have gone into Iraq, despite that fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction.
The Post Most: PoliticsMost-viewed stories, videos and galleries int he past two hours
Loading...
Comments