Romney blasts Obama, Hillary Clinton for ‘failed leadership’ in op-ed

Former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney is taking aim at President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for foreign policy decisions in Ukraine and other global hot spots.

“Why, across the world, are America’s hands so tied?” he asks in an op-ed published Tuesday in The Wall Street Journal entitled “The Price of Failed Leadership.”

{mosads}Romney writes that Obama and Clinton “traveled the world in pursuit of their promise to reset relations and to build friendships across the globe.”

“Their failure has been painfully evident: It is hard to name even a single country that has more respect and admiration for America today than when President Obama took office, and now Russia is in Ukraine. Part of their failure, I submit, is due to their failure to act when action was possible, and needed,” Romney adds

“Able leaders anticipate events, prepare for them, and act in time to shape them. My career in business and politics has exposed me to scores of people in leadership positions, only a few of whom actually have these qualities,” he writes. “Some simply cannot envision the future and are thus unpleasantly surprised when it arrives. Some simply hope for the best. Others succumb to analysis paralysis, weighing trends and forecasts and choices beyond the time of opportunity.”

Romney blames part of the problems in Crimea, North Korea, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan on “terrible timing.”

“In virtually every foreign-affairs crisis we have faced these past five years, there was a point when America had good choices and good options,” he writes. “There was a juncture when America had the potential to influence events. But we failed to act at the propitious point; that moment having passed, we were left without acceptable options.”

Romney concludes by writing that a “chastened president and Secretary of State [John] Kerry, a year into his job, can yet succeed, and for the country’s sake, must succeed. Timing is of the essence.”