Obama convenes a conference call at Camp David with Homeland Security Advisor John Brennan, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Chief of Staff Jack Lew Sunday. (White House)
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Barack Obama (AP)
President Obama suddenly finds himself on the hot seat about foreign policy.
He’ll face intense scrutiny tonight for blunders surrounding the deadly terror attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, when he takes on Mitt Romney in the third and final 2012 presidential debate.
The debate, in Boca Raton, Fla., is supposed to deal exclusively with foreign policy, which should have been a gift for Obama. After all, he has the foreign-policy résumé that you only get from being president. He ordered the Seal Team 6 strike that killed Osama bin Laden — a crowning accomplishment that Obama is sure to remind voters of.
But all that is jeopardized by Obama’s botched handling of the Benghazi episode and other Mideast turmoil, such as strained US relations with Israel and Iran’s unchecked nuclear ambitions.
Romney, who has virtually no foreign experience, will have ample opportunity to score points on these topics, after failing to do so in the last two debates.
Obama’s Benghazi mess just keeps getting deeper as more facts come out:
* US drones were watching the US Consulate in Benghazi during the attack, but a rescue mission wasn’t ordered.
* Repeated requests for enhanced security went unheeded, including one sent hours before the Sept. 11 attack by US Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was among the four Americans killed.
* Obama and top administration officials, including UN Ambassador Susan Rice, for weeks claimed the attack was by a mob protesting a video lampooning the prophet Mohammed, despite evidence the motive was terrorism.
* Obama said Thursday on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” that the deaths of four Americans at the consulate was “not optimal,” prompting outrage from the mother of slain State Department technology expert Pat Smith.
The Iran issue came to the forefront on Saturday when The New York Times reported that the White House and Teheran had “agreed in principle” to nuke talks set for after the Nov. 6 election. But both sides denied it.
Romney yesterday declined to say whether he would agree to one-on-one talks with Iran.
But top Romney adviser Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) panned the idea, saying it would be “abandoning” allies like Israel.
The sparring over Libya was previewed yesterday by the Obama and Romney camps on the Sunday talk shows.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a top Republican expert on military issues, called the Benghazi consulate a “death trap.”
”It’s exhibit A of a failed national-security policy. This is failed presidential leadership at its worst,” told “Fox News Sunday.”
Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the chamber’s No. 2 Democratic leader, accused Republicans of going to great lengths to trying to “politicize this tragic situation.”
“These acts of terrorism, as horrific as they are, have to be understood as part of living in a dangerous world,” Durbin told the network, noting that 230 Marines were killed in Beirut in 1983 on President Reagan’s watch.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, formerly Obama’s White House chief of staff, came down even harder on the Republicans.
”This is a time for the United States to come together, figure out what happened, which is what the commander in chief has to do . . . which he has done repeatedly,” he fumed on ABC’s “This Week.”
”I would warn again, or at least highlight again: When it came to getting Osama bin Laden, Mitt Romney said that shouldn’t be a priority of ours, and the president said absolutely different.”