The world according to Romney
INDERJEET PARMAR
A ‘Mormon foreign policy’ would actually be good for America and great for the world, but it won’t happen
As the world prepares to face another United States presidential election — one in which President Barack Obama is the front-runner but not a shoo-in by a long-shot — governments and analysts across the globe, including in India, must ask themselves what the likely foreign and national security policies of America’s first ‘Mormon’ White House under Mitt Romney might look like.
Widely derided as either weird or a cult, a foreign policy true to Mormon beliefs would likely see radical shifts — a massive rollback of American military forces from Afghanistan, decline in the threatening attitude to Iran, a reversal of blanket support and aid to Israel, and slashed military spending. America would “come home” and experience a real peace dividend that so patently failed to materialise after the end of the Cold War.
‘Americanised’
But there’s a difference between authentic Mormon beliefs and ex-Bishop Willard Mitt Romney, the Church of Latter Day Saints’ establishment and, it must be noted, the majority of American Mormons. So “Americanised” are Romney, the LDS establishment, and lay Mormons that a Romney White House would probably differ little in practice from previous administrations — including JFK’s “Roman Catholic” and Obama’s “African-American” ones. And that is testimony to the almost overweening assimilationist powers of the American Way of Life — the subordination, or hollowing out, of any beliefs that challenge free enterprise, limited government, American exceptionalism, and U.S. proactive global leadership.