Third US Presidential Debate: Around the World in 90 minutes

Final US Presidential Debate (Source: CNN)

Earlier this week, we had the honour of watching the last US Presidential debate. It wasn't fiery like the previous one; but it wasn't bad either.

Most analysts agree that Governor Romney revealed lack of familiarity with foreign policy; however, in my opinion, what we saw last Monday was the real Mitt Romney; the moderate Governor Romney, the "biological father" of Obamacare. For the first time, since the presidential campaign started, candidate Romney seemed sincere each time he'd agree with Pres. Obama - his face changed, his body spoke differently, he sweated less yet he perspired honesty.

President Obama was relaxed; he was fluid in expressing his experience in foreign policy. He defended his policies well; he explained well the fruits of those policies and, once again, he showed why he's the President of the United States (the International Community was reminded why it was a good idea to follow his lead).

Gov. Romney didn't seem to know what the Middle East is, for when he spoke of it he mentioned "Syria, Libya, Mali, Egypt" - of this four only Syria is in the ME, all the rest is in Africa. Mitt Romney should've prepared his geography before attending a debate on foreign policy. Furthermore, Bob Schiefer was clear "This one’s on foreign policy" - so when Mitt Romney took every opportunity to divert the debate to domestic policy...he, once again, cast doubt over his abilities to deal with the world.

Mitt Romney's strategy to "help the world reject these terrorists" is very sound; but he revealed some degree of naïveté because how is economic development ever to take place when jihadists hinder such possibility (by subjecting countries to constant conflict and destruction); how is gender equality and better education ever to occur when Islamists impose an education system that focus primarily on religious subjects (the Hadith, Fiqh, Tafsir and the Quran) and teaches children that a woman's position in society is inferior and that her role is to serve her family and raise children; how is the rule of law supposed to be implemented when Islamists consider it an antithesis to their version of Islam? These issues are far more complex than republicans want us to believe and, quite frankly, to hear Mr Romney being so simplistic is worrying.

I agree with Gov. Romney "Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. (..) It’s the route for them to arm Hezbollah (...) which threatens, of course, our ally Israel" but I also agree with Pres. Obama "And we are making sure that that those we help are those who will be friends of ours in the long term and friends of our allies in the region over the long term." because it makes no sense for the US to rush into Syria to help and invest money in nation-building (before the US rebuilds itself fully) so that, in the end, America and Israel are accused of occupation and imperialism (fuelling, thus, one more cycle of jihad). The West cannot afford to repeat the same mistakes.

Concerning Egypt, Pres. Obama sent a vital message "They have to abide by their treaty with Israel. That is a red line for us, because not only is Israel’s security at stake, but our security is at stake if that unravels. They have to make sure that they’re cooperating with us when it comes to counterterrorism" - the Egyptian government has failed to control the terrorist presence in the Sinai and, thus, the POTUS is warning pres. Mursi that if Al-Qaeda manages to close the circle (it is presently trying to form around Israel) his country will pay the due price, under his command. At the same time, Pres. Obama is telling PM Netanyahu that he should also focus on Egypt instead of focusing primarily on imposing red lines on Iran.

I agree with both gladiators when they say that having a strong economy, and rebuilding America, is a matter of national security (like Pres. Obama said "because we’ve got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas."). Iran is still rejoicing, as we speak, over the fact that the US did exactly what Iranians wanted: it removed Iran's number one foe out of Persia's way and, in the process, it ruined its own economy (thus, weakening the US and Europe in the eyes of the world) - we must admit that it was a brilliant move by the Persians.

Mitt Romney stated "Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators." now, this is truly a case of Romnesia. Here are three examples of America dictating to other nations: the US involvement in the Iranian coup d'état of 1953; US involvement in the Brazilian coup d'état of 1964 and, the US involvement in the Chilean coup d'état of 1973  - all to depose democratically elected political leaders and, look how well that went. Under Barack Obama's leadership, the US changed that trend.

I appreciated President Obama's words "And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn’t take donors, I didn’t attend fundraisers, I went to Yad Vashem, the — the Holocaust museum there, to remind myself the — the nature of evil and why our bond with Israel will be unbreakable." - he could've said "why our bond with Israel is unbreakable" but the fact that he used the future tense says it all about his eternal commitment to the closest US ally, and friend, in the ME.

After a close analysis of this Foreign Policy debate we reached the conclusion that Governor Romney did not pass the commander-in-chief test. The world wouldn't follow his lead.

Final Standings: Romney 1 - 2 Obama