Mitt and the Bomber Boys

Would Romney really reject the bellicose neocon wing of his party?

By Joe Klein Monday, Nov. 05, 2012
    • Illustration by Oliver Munday for TIME; Romney: Joe Raedle / Getty Images

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    They aren't the only ones pushing an Israel-centric foreign policy. Evangelical Christians believe in the aggrandizement of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. But neoconservatives--who often display an admirable idealism when it comes to replacing dictators with democracy throughout the world--provide the intellectual rationale for sledgehammer stupidity abroad. They stock Republican campaigns with policy experts. These experts, like Romney adviser John Bolton, tend to be dangerously simplistic ideologues. They believe we can still determine events in the Middle East and elsewhere by force of arms. Krauthammer posited a "unipolar world," and there is some very limited truth to that, especially when it comes to military power. But we now know that the force of arms will backfire, unless used judiciously and cooperatively, in a world still sensitive to the racist depredations of colonialism.

    The Bomber Boys obviously believe that Romney's performance in the third debate was a Trojan horse, and who's to say they are wrong? Romney's sudden reversals, his skitter to the center, would have been a laughable disaster in a democracy with a highly informed citizenry. But we are an overworked, overstimulated people without the time to stay informed about the nuances of foreign policy. Several Romney advisers have assured me that he's not a neocon, that what you saw is what we'll get. But what I saw was a man who was willing to say anything to get nominated by his party and then say the opposite to get elected President.

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