Dov Zakheim, the chief foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney, the U.S. Republican Party’s presidential nominee, has a difficult task: Explaining the world view of a candidate who has very little foreign policy experience.
The candidate recently outraged Palestinian leaders when, on a trip to Israel, he said the Israeli economic success came down to “cultural differences” and the “hand of providence,” and declared Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital city. He made no mention of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
But how would Mr. Romney deal with the challenges in the Middle East as president? Zakheim gave a preview to VOA’s Carol Castiel and Andre de Nesnera on Press Conference USA.
On Israel
“There is no way you can have a peace process with an Israeli government and an Israeli people that doesn’t trust the United States. And that’s where we are today … This is in a population, the majority of whom support a peace with the Palestinians and a Palestinian state. And yet that same majority doesn’t trust President Obama. So the first thing you’ve got to to do is restore trust. Once you restore trust, then you’re in a position to negotiate in both directions. [Does Mr. Romney support a two-state solution?] Yes.”
On Syria
Dov Zakheim, foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (VOA).
“What he [Mr. Romney] wants to do is to get arms to the Free Syrian Army and the opponents of the regime and get arms to them in a very serious, big way. That means money, that means arms transfers … Does that mean that we have to send troops on the ground? Not necessarily … You would have to identify whom you’re channeling to … We always run the risk that some of them might not be good folks, but we know for sure that the devil that we do know is Mr. Assad [the Syrian president]. And so we don’t know if the other side is the devil; but we do know Mr. Assad is the devil, so step number one is to have him go.”
On Iran
“Where we have fallen short, with respect to Iran … is that by changing the red lines, for example, by turning around and saying, ‘No you cannot enrich [uranium],’ and then saying, ‘Well maybe you can enrich,’ by exempting well over a dozen countries from these sanctions … We’re sending the wrong signals to Iran … What Mr. Romney is going to demonstrate is that he’s not bluffing. We have to tighten up the sanctions, push the diplomacy … we have to demonstrate that we mean what we say.”
On the Arab Spring
“Essentially what we want is to ensure that whoever is in charge of these countries does not take them even further backward. For example, Mr. [Mohamed] Morsi, the president of Egypt, should not have gone to Tehran for the Non-Aligned [Movement] conference. What [he does] internally is hopefully his business … but what is important is that he doesn’t rupture the treaty with Israel. In terms of other countries … don’t roll back the rights that women already have … don’t try to impose Sharia law on those who don’t want it. In other words, don’t replace one dictator with another.”
Listen to more of Dov Zakheim’s interview (5:43):
David Byrd
David Byrd is a journalist, writer, video editor and photographer. He is also the host of VOA's American Cafe, a weekly show covering life and culture in the United States.
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