Mitt Romney on Monday accused President Obama of a lack of leadership on the global stage in a speech the GOP nominee hopes can capitalize on the momentum gained from his strong performance in last week's presidential debate.
In what his campaign billed as a major foreign policy address, Romney claimed that "this president’s policies have not been equal to our best examples of world leadership."
"It is the responsibility of our president to use America’s great power to shape history — not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events. Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama," Romney said during his remarks at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va.
Romney also said that the situation in the Middle East is worse than when Obama took office.
"But when we look at the Middle East today — with Iran closer than ever to nuclear weapons capability, with the conflict in Syria threatening to destabilize the region, with violent extremists on the march, and with an American ambassador and three others dead, likely at the hands of al Qaeda affiliates, it is clear that the risk of conflict in the region is higher now than when the President took office."
Recent polls show Romney tied with Obama following his win in the first presidential debate. His campaign hopes the speech will help the GOP nominee set the stage for his next two debates with Obama and give a leg up to running mate Paul Ryan, whose lack of foreign policy experience could be a handicap when he faces off with Vice President Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Thursday.
Romney has given a number of "major" foreign policy addresses throughout the campaign, but aides on a conference call Sunday said this speech would be different because Romney would offer a detailed explanation of how he would have handled recent world events differently than Obama did.
He addressed several specific foreign policy topics in his remarks, including the recent violence in Libya that claimed the lives of four American foreign service officers, the U.S. relationship with Israel, the situation in Syria and concerns about Iran's nuclear capabilities.
For more on Romney's remarks, click here.
