In a conversations in the comments of another post on September 7, I said:
“Obama too is guilty of warmongering, nationalism, and corporatism, just as the bailouts and other interventions that Romney and Ryan supported also contributed to regime uncertainty.
Obama is just slightly less disastrous on foreign policy grounds, and Romney is slightly less disastrous on economic grounds.
That being said, in the long run, the above impacts would likely be reversed.
Obama’s foreign meddling will sow the seeds of further conflict and global instability, and yet this failure will be blamed on his allegedly “soft” foreign policy, and thereby give peace a bad name.
Romney’s corporatist economic policies will sow the seeds of further crises and depression, and yet this failure will be blamed on his allegedly “free market” policy, and thereby give capitalism a bad name.”
The series of events that began just 4 day later showed how such “long-term” effects can occur even in the short term. The current unrest in the Arab world is due largely to Obama’s recent meddling in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere. It is a violent recoiling of the U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring”. Yet it is being blamed by many (not just in the leadership of the Neocon right, but also for many swing voters, as evidenced by the fact that Obama’s lead over Romney has subsequently evaporated) as a result of a America’s recent failure to “lead”: in other words, not meddling enough.
