"It's going to be a whole sea change," the source said, although adding that the framework is likely to collapse if Romney wins the election. "If Mitt becomes president," the source said, "you'll have chaos in the Middle East."
Romney's Hard Line
The Times's article also noted that plans for face-to-face talks might collapse if Romney wins:
"It is also far from clear that Mr. Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney, would go through with the negotiation should he win election. Mr. Romney has repeatedly criticized the president as showing weakness on Iran and failing to stand firmly with Israel against the Iranian nuclear threat. ..."The prospect of one-on-one negotiations could put Mr. Romney in an awkward spot, since he has opposed allowing Iran to enrich uranium to any level -- a concession that experts say will probably figure in any deal on the nuclear program."
During the Oct. 22 debate, Romney displayed ignorance about basic facts regarding Iran and he indicated that he shared the view of his neocon advisers that the civil war in Syria amounted to "an opportunity."
In the third presidential debate, Romney said...
"Syria's an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. Syria is Iran's only ally in the Arab world. It's their route to the sea. It's the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally Israel. And so seeing Syria remove [President Bashar al] Assad is a very high priority for us. Number two, seeing a -- a replacement government being responsible people is critical for us."
The "route to the sea" gaffe -- mistaking Iran for some landlocked country -- exposed Romney's weak sense of world geography, since Iran sits on the Persian Gulf. Iran also has no common border with Syria. Iraq rests between the two countries.
But Romney's clumsy geopolitical statement resurrected the neocons' long-standing goal of forcing "regime change" in Syria and Iran -- as well as Iraq under Saddam Hussein -- and thus starving Israel's close-in enemies, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas, of outside support. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Moderate Mitt: Neocon Trojan Horse."]
For Romney's neocon advisers, who dominate his campaign's inner foreign policy circle, torpedoing a potential settlement on Iran's nuclear program would be their first challenge in establishing their preeminence in a Romney administration next year.
Even if bilateral talks are held after a Romney victory, the neocons could guide them toward deliberate failure and then use the collapse as a demonstration of Iranian intransigence, thus justifying an eventual U.S.-Israeli military strike.
So, in a very practical way, a possible war with Iran -- and the fate of millions of civilians who could be caught up in the carnage -- will be on the ballot in the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 6.
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