What Will Happen if Romney Wins?

Last week during the three-day convention in Tampa, Florida, the Republican party tried their best to introduce Romney in a way that would endear him to the American people. As a result of the convention, which ended with Romney’s nomination speech, the United States now knows Romney a little better. The country is still severely polarized.

Even among the strongest of the Republican voting bloc, a sense of unease about Romney can still be perceived. This is because Romney is not a politician of the caliber of Clinton or Obama. His oratory skills are limited. He has a very stiff and wooden style. With his artificial smile and an essence that is more distant than charismatic, he is having a more difficult time charming the electorate than Obama. Despite this, according to opinion polls, Obama and Romney are only separated by a hair’s breadth. No one can guarantee that Obama will be victorious in the swing states that will be the key to determining the election, such as Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan and Missouri. The issue of the economy is clearly increasing Romney's chances of winning. In the history of American politics, there has not been an incumbent president who has won an election with an unemployment rate of 8 percent. In the past, it has always been because of the economy that candidates such as Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush have lost elections. The same thing could happen to Obama. If Obama does not get the results he wants in the aforementioned swing states, the White House could have a new administration in 2013.

And what if Romney wins? Even if the economy is the most important issue for the American election, the real question for Turkey and the rest of the world is what kind of foreign policy the United States would follow under Romney. To answer this question, we need to look at Romney's advisors in the field of foreign policy. Romney’s team is split between realists and neoconservatives, including a group of neocon hawks that worked in the George W. Bush administration. They find Obama soft on the issue of Iran and have criticized the president’s strategy on Israel and Palestine harshly. Even if they don't have much to say on the issue of Iraq, they have accused Obama of creating an artificial timetable for the withdrawal from Afghanistan. However, since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are not very popular in the eyes of the American public, they have not raised their voices much on these subjects. Furthermore, since Osama bin Laden was killed during the current administration, the Romney team does not have strong grounds for criticizing the White House on the issue of terrorism. Instead, they are defending policies like protecting the Pentagon's budget despite the rising level of debt, showing more serious leadership on Syria and having a more rigid stance toward Russia and China. On the topic of Syria, we see the biggest disagreement among the neocons and realists within the Romney camp. While realists like Richard Haass say that it is necessary to avoid getting entangled in Syria, neocons like Eliot Abrams say that the solution is a NATO intervention, similar to the one that was staged in Libya.

Apart from the issue of Israel and Palestine, it is unknown what Romney is thinking on these other topics. With such an emphasis on the economy in this election, no one is even curious about Romney's thoughts on the issue of Syria. On the other hand, everyone knows that if Romney is elected, his first order of business will be rescinding Obama's healthcare reforms. In conclusion, if Romney wins, we will be facing a radical capitalist who is confused on foreign policy and is opposed to the notion of a welfare state.