Did Obama and Romney disagree in the foreign policy debate? Not so much

Just a minute into Monday night’s debate, and I knew this was going to be a tough one to sort out.

Which moment? The one where Mitt Romney declared that “we can’t kill our way out of this mess,” and proceeded to outline a balanced approach to confronting the challenges facing us in the Middle East. It was the first of several times in the debate where it was hard to figure out who was the hawk and who was the dove and how exactly these two candidates were disagreeing.

Iran: You can think Obama has been soft. You can think Romney has been saber-rattling. But, based on the policies outlined during the debate, what’s the difference? Their bottom line is the same: They will do whatever it takes to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. The use of force is on the table, but as a last resort — only after diplomacy and sanctions have been exhausted. What about the question of red lines — is it when Iran actually has a weapon, or is there some earlier threshold? Romney spoke of nuclear capability. And Obama essentially did as well, when he said:

And one last thing — just — just to make this point. The clock is ticking. We’re not going to allow Iran to perpetually engage in negotiations that lead nowhere. And I’ve been very clear to them. You know, because of the intelligence coordination that we do with a range of countries, including Israel, we have a sense of when they would get breakout capacity, which means that we would not be able to intervene in time to stop their nuclear program.

And that clock is ticking. And we’re going to make sure that if they do not meet the demands of the international community, then we are going to take all options necessary to make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon.

Daylight: A major anti-Obama talking point — repeated Romney in the second and third debates — is that the president said we needed to put some “daylight” between the United States and Israel. Did Obama actually ever say that? Well, yes and no. The comment in question was said in a July 2009 White House meeting between Obama and Jewish organizational leaders. Here’s how we reported it in real time:

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The only signs of contention — from [Abraham] Foxman, the ADL’s national director, and [Malcolm] Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Presidents Conference — had to do with how Obama was handling his demand for a settlements freeze, not with its substance.

Hoenlein said that peace progress was likelier when there was "no daylight" between Israel and the United States. Obama agreed that it must always be clear that Israel has unalloyed U.S. support but added that for the past eight years, referring to the Bush administration, there was "no daylight and no progress."

Listening to Romney, one might erroneously think that Obama had once given a speech or made a public comment declaring that he wanted the world to see “daylight” between the two countries. But that’s not what happened. The exchange in question was made behind closed doors, and it was actually Hoenlein who introduced the D-word. And, rather than advocating a policy, Obama was essentially describing what he saw as a conundrum — how to demonstrate unwavering U.S. support for Israel while also pushing Israel on points of disagreements. On the other hand … while the “daylight” exchange may have been more nuanced than GOPers make it out to be, Obama had certainly made the case in other venues that to advance the peace process, the United States needed to be more public about saying where it stood. And, most importantly, let’s not forget the reason Obama and Jewish leaders were having that behind-closed doors conversation was because the president and his administration had been publicly and strongly criticizing Israel over its settlement policies.

One last point: Even if you belive Obama is getting a little bit of a bum rap on this one… well, he had it coming. Why? Because it all started with his baseless assertion that no progress had been made during George W. Bush’s time in office (assuming you think a two-state solution is a good thing). Bush was the first sitting president to declare that the establishment of a Palestinian state was a U.S. policy goal and certainly worked to make it happen, especially during his second term. And during that same time, Israel pulled out of Gaza and dismantled several West Bank settlements. Plus we saw right-wing prime ministers endorse a two-state solution and engage in serious negotiations with the Palestinians. So what exactly did Obama mean by no progress?

Palestinians: Romney’s been criticized in some circles for various remarks suggesting that he does not see resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a priority, or even a possibility. But guess what? During the debate Monday night, Romney faulted the president for a lack of movement on this front, asking rhetorically, “Are Israel and the Palestinians closer to reaching a peace agreement?” As for Obama, he made no mention of the Palestinians, the two-state solution or Israeli settlements. Of course, if you cut through the spin on both sides, this shouldn’t be such a surprise — the Obama administration essentially stopped pushing once the Palestinians abandoned talks and pushed for a unilateral statehood declaration at the United Nations. As for Romney, his folks fought to keep support for the two-state solution in the GOP platform, and during the primaries he criticized Newt Gingrich for potentially inflaming the situation by asserting that the Palestinians were a made-up people.

Egypt: In some conservative pro-Israel circles, Barack Obama has been criticized for giving Hosni Mubarak a push out the door. Well, turns out Romney thinks the president made the right call on that one:

“But once it exploded, I felt the same as the president did, which is these freedom voices and the streets of Egypt, where the people who were speaking of our principles and the President Mubarak had done things which were unimaginable and the idea of him crushing his people was not something that we could possibly support.”

Now it is true that Romney lamented the failure of Obama (and, for that matter, President Bush) to do more ahead of time and afterwards to secure a peaceful, democratic and pro-American transition in Egypt. But he was short on specifics about what was done wrong or what he would have done differently.