In an effort to whip up support for military action against Iran, GOP presidential aspirants exaggerate to the point of absurdity the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran might pose. At a February 8 speech in Cleveland, Ohio, Gingrich admonished his audience to "think about the dangers to Cleveland, or to Columbus, or to Cincinnati, or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros. And it's 300,000 dead. Maybe a half million wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction."
Such alarmism is a reckless effort to foment panic. Military experts conclude that even if Iran could enrich enough uranium to build a few nuclear devices, they would be primitive affairs with limited destructive capacity, not the massive city-busters that Gingrich implies. Moreover, it would be years before Iran could shrink the initial weapons enough to put on even short range missiles, much less ICBMs capable of reaching the United States. That danger is many years away, if it emerges at all. And the United States has a strategic arsenal with several thousand nuclear weapons to deter Iran or any other adversary.
Foreign policy jingoism surfaces with respect to other issues, especially relations with China. Mitt Romney has been especially hard-hitting. Pledging to "clamp down" on trade "cheaters," Romney added (to strong applause during a debate) that "China is the worst example of that. They have manipulated their currency to make their products artificially inexpensive." He also pledged to "go after them for stealing our intellectual property."
Such harsh rhetoric is not confined to trade and currency issues. Criticisms of China's human rights record and allegations that Beijing poses a security threat to the United States are also prominent. Both Gingrich and Santorum have blasted the Obama administration for not taking a more proactive stance on Beijing's human rights abuses, and they cite that as yet another example of the president's "appeasement" tendencies. One-time GOP presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann warned that "the Chinese just finished building 3,000 miles of underground tunnels where they are housing some nuclear weapons." Romney, Santorum and Gingrich all cite China's ongoing military modernization as a key reason why, they contend, the United States dare not make even small cuts in its defense budget - even though Washington already spends five times more than Beijing.
Jon Huntsman, a candidate who dropped out of the race, found Republican party activists extremely hostile to his advocacy of cooperation with China. Indeed, his service as US ambassador to China and his ability to speak Mandarin were widely regarded as major negatives for his candidacy.
The prospect that a Republican president would exhibit strident belligerence in foreign affairs ought to be troubling not only to Americans but to populations around the world. It was hardly encouraging when his opponents criticized, and a debate audience soundly booed, Ron Paul's call for the United States to practice the Golden Rule in its conduct with other nations. Given the current crop of GOP presidential candidates, a new Republican administration would likely replicate George W. Bush's surly unilateralism that regarded military force as the first, rather than the last, resort. US foreign policy under Gingrich, Santorum, or Romney threatens to be Bush Jr.'s foreign policy on steroids.
