Romney on Syria echoes Obama's Libya strategy

I love Fareed Zakaria because he tells it like it is.    Mitt Romney's response in the Arizona republican debate concerning what he would do in Syria was actually a good one. It makes sense to study the situation to have a good idea who the players on the ground are, unlike what Bush/Cheney did before entering both the Iraq and Afgan wars.  Such a process will hopefully continue to shine a bright light on the brutal massacre that's going on.  Now that Syria is basically turning into a modern day Bosnia/Rwanda genocidal situation, and the US has neither the funds nor political will to either enter or sustain another war, especially with a possible nuclear Iran in the offing, Romney wants to work with the players in the area.  

Mitt Romney: With Assad in trouble, we need to communicate to the Alawites, his friends, his ethnic group, to say, look, you have a future if you'll abandon that guy Assad.  We need to work with Saudi Arabia and with Turkey to say, 'You guys provide the kind of weaponry that's needed to help the rebels inside Syria.' This is a critical time for us. If we can turn Syria and Lebanon away from Iran, we finally have the capacity to get Iran to pull back.

What annoys me is, Romney's essentially advocating for Syria what Obama did in Libya. And since republicans have nothing good to say about anything Obama has done, this really sticks in my craw.

Zakaria:

"You're used to hearing such, frankly, nonsense on the campaign trail, because people just make wild accusations. [Mitt Romney's answer] was a sensible, thoughtful, sophisticated answer.

In an odd sense, of course, what Mitt Romney is suggesting is a version of Barack Obama's strategy in Libya. In Libya, we let the Europeans take the lead and we said we will support what you do, but you guys have to be out in front. What he's suggesting is Turkey and Saudi Arabia should take the lead and we would support it. 

I'm sure he's not going to call it leading from behind, but that's sort of what he's suggesting."

Hmmm….Zakaria makes it sound as if Romney's approach would allow other nations to take the lead but have the US supply those nations with diplomatic cover and possible outside military aid.  Thereby our "imperialistic" hands would not be the ones that toppled the regime, more arab/islamic friendly governments would be at the head of the pack.  A sound strategy. Obama may use it and again, Romney's policy breakthroughs would be used to deal with domestic political expediences. Maybe instead of leading from behind, the strategy could be called "Leading like a Mormon" or since rich businessmen know how to delegate: "Leading through delegation of fiduciary and military resources…" Or maybe you'd just call it rational and thoughtful execution of of foreign policy.  Just somebody save those people, I really don't care where the ideas come from.