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Atlantic - "Why Romney Is the War Candidate"
I think we should be scared that Romney was taking such pains to look like a pacifist at the risk of upsetting right wingers...
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/why-romney-is-the-war-candidate/264029/
First, assuming he sticks with something like his current foreign policy team, Romney will have some advisers who are "pro-Israel" in a particularly right-wing, hawkish sense of the term. Which is to say: they'll likely align with Netanyahu on the Iran issue. (This isn't the place for my sermon about how this right-wing brand of "pro-Israel" is often--including in this case--anti-Israel in the sense that it undermines Israel's long-term security.)
Second, a President Romney would be beholden to mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who is "pro-Israel" in the unfortunate sense I've just described. According to the Associated Press, Adelson has already given $34 million to "Romney and organizations supporting Romney this election, making him the donor of donors for the GOP." And Adelson has said he could eventually provide as much as $100 million--an amount that, however outlandish it sounds, he might actually approach now that the race is so tight. But even if he stopped at $34 million, Adelson would be on a President Romney's very, very short list of "donors I least want to antagonize before 2016." To believe that donations of this mind-boggling magnitude don't significantly influence a president's policy positions is to believe that money plays no role in politics.
* * *
Finally, some people think Netanyahu et. al. are genuinely freaked out by the thought of an Iran that has any centrifuges still spinning (even though the deal with Iran most commonly discussed--a deal Iran has signaled its openness to--would leave it much further away from the red line on Bibi's famous bomb cartoon than it is now, allowing it to enrich uranium only up to the 5-percent level.) I personally doubt that Bibi's motivation is this simple and straightforward, though, again, Adelson's may well be.
Whatever the motivations of Netanyahu, Adelson, AIPAC, etc., they are collectively a force that it will be hard for a President Romney to ignore during his first term. (I think the power of the Israel lobby is often overstated, but it's not nothing, and in any event, so far Romney is acting as if he believes in its awesome electoral power.) A second-term Obama, in contrast, would have both the ability and the motivation to resist their influence.
Second, a President Romney would be beholden to mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, who is "pro-Israel" in the unfortunate sense I've just described. According to the Associated Press, Adelson has already given $34 million to "Romney and organizations supporting Romney this election, making him the donor of donors for the GOP." And Adelson has said he could eventually provide as much as $100 million--an amount that, however outlandish it sounds, he might actually approach now that the race is so tight. But even if he stopped at $34 million, Adelson would be on a President Romney's very, very short list of "donors I least want to antagonize before 2016." To believe that donations of this mind-boggling magnitude don't significantly influence a president's policy positions is to believe that money plays no role in politics.
* * *
Finally, some people think Netanyahu et. al. are genuinely freaked out by the thought of an Iran that has any centrifuges still spinning (even though the deal with Iran most commonly discussed--a deal Iran has signaled its openness to--would leave it much further away from the red line on Bibi's famous bomb cartoon than it is now, allowing it to enrich uranium only up to the 5-percent level.) I personally doubt that Bibi's motivation is this simple and straightforward, though, again, Adelson's may well be.
Whatever the motivations of Netanyahu, Adelson, AIPAC, etc., they are collectively a force that it will be hard for a President Romney to ignore during his first term. (I think the power of the Israel lobby is often overstated, but it's not nothing, and in any event, so far Romney is acting as if he believes in its awesome electoral power.) A second-term Obama, in contrast, would have both the ability and the motivation to resist their influence.
