The Future of the GOP's Foreign Policy

To the extent that Americans remember anything about foreign policy from the 2012 campaign, it may be the third presidential debate, in which Republican challenger Mitt Romney -- who, on domestic issues, presented a sharp contrast with President Barack Obama -- suddenly morphed into his opponent's doppelgänger. Obama resisted the notion of a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities or arming the Syrian rebels, and Romney showed doubt too. Obama talked tough on China, and so did Romney. Obama framed putting America's fiscal house in order as a national security imperative; ditto Romney. In fact, Romney explicitly said some half-dozen times that he supported the president's policies. As Daily Show host Jon Stewart exclaimed the next day, "What the hell was that!?" What the hell, indeed.