This was what former Secretary of State Colin Powell said in an MSNBC interview in May, expressing his concerns about the foreign policy team of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate. Coming from someone with the stature of Powell, an experienced diplomat as well as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the First Persian Gulf War with Iraq, the image presented of Romney's foreign policy advisers is a deeply disturbing one. As the presidential race shifts into high gear, foreign policy, which many thought would not be a major issue in the campaign, is becoming more important by the day. With the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group -- the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany -- stalled, Iran is once again a punching bag for the candidates, who are striving to outdo each other in the blows that they promise to land on the Islamic Republic over the next four years.
Romney is a novice when it comes to foreign policy, as his numerous gaffes during his recent trip to Great Britain, Israel, and Poland evidence. Short of an outright military attack, however, I do not believe that he can take a harder line toward Iran than President Barack Obama has. After all, the Obama administration has imposed extremely harsh and comprehensive sanctions that are hurting millions of Iranians. Still, I believe it is important to take a look at Romney's foreign policy advisers and how they view Iran.
Last October, the Romney campaign officially announced its team of 24 "special advisers" on foreign policy and national security, two thirds of whom served under President George W. Bush, who led one of the most hawkish administrations in memory. In 1998, three of those advisers (Paula Dobriansky, Robert Kagan, and Vin Weber) signed the infamous letter sent by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century that urged President Bill Clinton to make toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein official U.S. policy, a wish eventually fulfilled with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A total of 40 foreign policy advisers to Romney have now been identified -- including unofficial ones such as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and James Baker -- over 70 percent of whom served under Bush. These simple statistics alone provide important clues to what a Romney administration's foreign policy would look like.
In an article last month, the Wall Street Journal's Sara Murray described Romney's foreign policy team as a mix of "moderate and hawkish neoconservative." His senior foreign policy adviser, Daniel (Dan) Senor, was the spokesman for L. Paul Bremer, the American viceroy following the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. Other members of the team include John Bolton (another signatory of the 1998 Project for the New American Century letter), Cofer Black, Eliot A. Cohen, the aforementioned Paula Dobriansky, Walid Phares, Richard S. Williamson, Eric Edelman, Michael Hayden, and Dov Zakheim. (There is also an unconfirmed report that Amir Abbas Fakhravar, once dubbed Iran's "Ahmed Chalabi," has been working as a Middle East consultant to Romney's foreign policy team.) What are the backgrounds of these advisers and where do they stand on Iran?
