There is little difference between the two candidates on Egypt and the Arab Spring, notes Ezzat Ibrahim The US presidential elections debates concluded with a special episode on foreign policy. The Democratic candidate President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney have shown little differences on major topics and both came along with controversial issues in the Middle East. The Arab Spring captured a considerable part of the debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton (Florida) last Monday, but the Republican candidate did not use the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi to bang the president as expected from most foreign policy experts in Washington. Romney offered himself as a calm, assertive serious statesman to counter the previous image of being opportunistic in criticising Obama. Post-debate polls showed a division among American voters, particularly independents, towards the performance of both candidates. Some voters found Obama was more aggressive, others got the impression that he managed to explain his policies much better than his Republican foe. On the other hand, Romney adopted a strategy to drag Obama into the economy and education arenas to get the support of swing voters in a dead heat race and to avoid Obama's upper-hand on foreign policy. President Obama's campaign claimed that he won the final debate because his leadership has made America stronger, safer and more secure. "Tonight, we saw what it means to be commander-in-chief. Vision, courage, a steady hand," Vice President Joe Biden tweeted following the debate. To explain what happened, The Washington Post editorial said that Romney entered "Monday night's debate trailing President Obama in polls on foreign-policy aptitude and wanting to demonstrate that he could be a sober and competent commander-in-chief." The Republican camp was disappointed because "the GOP candidate chose to address broadly the turmoil across the Middle East, calling for policies to "try to get the Muslim world to reject extremism" and congratulating Obama on the killing of Osama bin Laden," the Post elaborated. Romney, according to Jackson Diehl, followed the formula of his advisors on foreign policy which is to talk like a president, to remain calm and avoid bickering. "Whether it worked is another question," Diehl wrote. It is widely believed that the debate would not affect much the electoral outcome a couple of weeks before voting. Despite the quiet tone, both candidates accused each other of failing to have clear foreign policy visions. At the very beginning, Romney criticised the president for the growing threats in Middle East. "With the Arab Spring came a great deal of hope that there would be a change towards more moderation, and opportunity for greater participation on the part of women in public life, and in economic life in the Middle East. But instead, we've seen in nation after nation, a number of disturbing events," Romney answered the first question of the moderator Bob Schieffer. The Republican candidate tried to hold the president responsible for what he called the "tumult" in the Middle East: "Looking back at the beginning of the president's term and even further back than that, we should have recognised that there was a growing energy and passion for freedom in that part of the world, and we should have worked more aggressively with our friend and with other friends in the region to have them make the transition towards a more representative form of government, such that it didn't explode in the way that it did." When Schieffer asked Obama if he regrets pushing former president Hosni Mubarak to go, the US president answered "No, I don't." Obama confirms the White House position on Egypt recalling president Kennedy to prove his point: "The notion that we would have tanks run over those young people who were in Tahrir Square, that is not the kind of American leadership that John F. Kennedy talked about 50 years ago." Sending a clear message to Egypt's new government, the Democratic president described the "peace treaty" between Cairo and Tel-Aviv as a "red line" for the United States "because not only is Israel's security at stake, but our security is at stake if that unravels." Obama showed support to the transitional process but he asked the new government to "take responsibility for protecting religious minorities, to recognise the rights of women, which is critical throughout the region. These countries can't develop if young women are not given the kind of education that they need. They have to make sure that they're cooperating with us when it comes to counterterrorism." To hedge the Republicans criticism, Obama emphasised that "to make the Egyptian revolution successful for the people of Egypt, but also for the world, is if those young people who gathered there are seeing opportunities." He ignored any reference to the Muslim Brotherhood group to avoid more clashes with Romney on the current US policy towards Islamists in power. On Syria, Obama defended the current policy towards the opposition and refused more physical intervention: "To get more entangled militarily in Syria is a serious step, and we have to do so making absolutely certain that we know who we are helping," the US president warned implicitly against the possible takeover of extremists. "We're not putting arms in the hands of folks who eventually could turn them against us or our allies in the region but what we can't do is to simply suggest, as Governor Romney has at times... that giving heavy weapons, for example, to the Syrian opposition is a simple proposition that would lead us to be safer over the long term." Romney, in return, attacked Obama for failing to take a leading role in the crisis, by uniting the opposition or rebel groups against Bashar Al-Assad. Romney did not go too far on Syria and he admitted that he will be against US military action there: "I don't want to have our military involved in Syria." Indeed, the Republican candidate stopped short of criticising Obama on Iran where he agreed that more "crippled sanctions" are required. In his response, the US president gave a picture of the role of these sanctions: "We then organised the strongest coalition and the strongest sanctions against Iran in history, and it is crippling their economy. Their currency has dropped 80 per cent. Their oil production has plunged to the lowest level since they were fighting a war with Iraq 20 years ago." In most of the debate, Romney wanted to send a message that the US must be "strong" and must "lead" and maybe this is the reason he did not challenge Obama much on major foreign policy issues, such as the US troops in Afghanistan, relations with Pakistan, Russia and Latin America. The discussion on China took a longer time and was more intense due to the fact that the Chinese economy has posed a real challenge to US economy and the US role in the world. To sum up the debate, Obama and Romney differ in the way both look at the US role in the world. Romney connects US world leadership to the domestic economy, and at the same time he acknowledges that the US has the "responsibility and privilege" to promote peace, but he emphasises that the sluggish economy and debt had weakened US leadership. Obama, in return, defends his policies showing the US as the "one indispensable nation", and confirms that it is stronger now than four years ago. Also, Obama responded to Romney's focus on the economy saying that the US should rebuild its economy by keeping jobs in the country instead of shipping them overseas.
