On the “Contrast” Between President Obama and Mitt Romney Over Iran and Unions

Earlier this year, as winter was turning to Spring and Mitt Romney was still engaged in the Republican Primary contests, President Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg that he would consider invading Iran if alternative policies failed.  Thanks in part to the media’s enthusiasm for it, for a brief time it almost appeared that an invasion was inevitable.  Not only did President Obama discuss it as an option, but Mitt Romney and the other Republican candidates seemed to suggest that it was a mistake not to have attacked Iran already.

Based on our experience in Iraq–in particular, the enormous human costs as well as its unpopularity–we at ACED thought that this course of action would be disastrous.  Yet if you accepted only the Republicans and Democrats as viable parties, you could not reject that policy as a citizen.  That is why we encouraged people who opposed war with Iran–most people–to look for alternatives to the major parties.  Fortunately, nothing, or at least no invasion, came of the talk, and the politicians and media moved on.

This week, though, Iran and what to do about Iran returned as an election-related news story.  While the tenor of the reports have changed, the actual content of the statements from Romney and President Obama, in particular, are remarkably similar.  For example, in February President Obama said that he would keep all options available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  That sounds exactly like what he told the U.N. on Tuesday.

As Uri Friedman reported in Foreign Policy, Mitt Romney will likely follow the very same approach to Iran - “tough sanctions mixed with diplomacy,” while expressly keeping “all options,” including military options, open.  That the two candidates will pursue similar policies should not be surprising, and, in fact, this has been clear regarding foreign policy for some time.  What is interesting is that despite their similarities, the candidates will attack each other as if they disagreed.  For example, President Obama “accused Romney of being cavalier about military action” on 60 Minutes when he suggested that Romney would attack Iran.  But the very next day, Obama gave the U.N. address in which he warned Iran that time was “not unlimited” before the United States would move beyond sanctions and diplomacy.  So President Obama first criticizes Romney for wanting to cavalierly start another war in the middle east even though Romney did not say that himself.  Indeed, Romney expressly aligned his Iran stance with President Obama’s just days before.  Then, the President himself threatens Iran with military action.

This is not just deceptive campaigning. This is how politicians from both parties manipulate voters into believing that the “other guy” is horribly scary and must be avoided at all costs.  Partisans will point to Obama’s statement as evidence that a Romney Presidency would lead to war when talking to a “liberal,” and point out that Obama is just as tough if not tougher than Romney when talking to a more conservative voter.

Like I said, both parties do this.  Romney did the same thing during the Chicago teachers’ strike.  Neither Romney nor President Obama supported teachers, and Obama arch-ally Rahm Emanuel was the union’s arch-enemy.  Nevertheless, Romney claimed that President Obama had “chosen his side in this fight” – the union’s side.  Romney lied.  He could somewhat credibly do so not only because politicians do so all of the time, but because he exploited the zombie idea that Democrats are somehow supportive of unions. At least in the case of President Obama, that notion could hardly be further from the truth.  For instance, many organized labor groups, such as the AFL-CIO, did not sponsor the Democratic National Convention.  AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was “personally outraged” by the JOBS Act passed earlier this year.  Also in 2012, President Obama had previously upset many in organized labor for signing a bill that will make it easier to decertify airline unions.  Before all of that, David Macaray had already lamented that the relationship between Obama and labor unions was one of “friends without benefits” – no benefits for the unions, that is.

These episodes go to show that reality is often irrelevant in elections between Democrats and Republicans.  Neither side particularly cares about facts.  Both care a great deal about fostering the image of their own and the other Party.  It behooved Obama to exploit the stereotype of the warmongering Republican.  And Romney took advantage of the association between unions and Democrats trying to score a political point.  Our point: Both candidates are about equally bad for most people, so you should probably vote for an alternative.