WASHINGTON — The Romney-Ryan team yesterday landed a one-two punch on President Obama’s foreign policy, as anti-America protests kept flaring across the Middle East and other Muslim countries.
Paul Ryan hit the hardest, tearing apart Obama’s Middle East record and saying the US needs leadership with “moral clarity and firmness of purpose.”
“Look across that region today, and what do we see?” the GOP vice presidential nominee asked a crowd of about 2,000 at the annual Values Voter Summit in DC.
“The slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria; mobs storming American embassies and consulates; Iran four years closer to gaining a nuclear weapon; Israel, our best ally in the region, treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration,” Ryan declared.
The gathering of religious conservatives responded with enthusiastic applause, a show of unity with the Jewish state in the face of perceived slights by Obama.
The violent anti-American protests, which are blamed on a YouTube movie that disparages the prophet Muhammad, has put foreign policy front and center in the campaign.
Romney also took aim at Obama’s strained relationship with Israel, saying it was “confusing and troubling” that Obama had snubbed an invitation to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week when he attends the opening of the UN General Assembly.
Romney said at a fund-raiser in the Midtown Hilton that Israel was America’s “closest ally” and “best friend in the Middle East.”
The White House denies that Netanyahu’s invite was rebuffed, blaming he inability to meet on a scheduling conflict.
Romney contrasted himself with Obama by saying the US needs to get tough with Egypt, where anti-American riots first broke out Tuesday.