Eric from Torrance asks…….What are your principles regarding foreign policy?  Do you support declarations of war?  Do you support having troops in Afghanistan?  Do you support the war in Iraq and do you support having troops in Iraq now?  What is your view on Iran?  Would you have voted for sanctions on Iran (HR 2194 - Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act of 2009)?

Keeping us safe and economic opportunity are the pillars of my principles as they relate to foreign policy.  Under our Constitution the President has the responsibility for foreign policy with some advice and consent of the Senate as it relates to treaties and such.  I don’t think we should ever cede any sovereignty to any other government, the UN, or any other “World Organization”.  We should always ask when it comes to our policy, does it keep us safe or is there an economic benefit.  As it relates to our safety, sometimes we have a moral obligation to help our allies stay safe.  If we (as the world) had only stopped Hitler early, we could have saved thousands of lives.  As for economic policy we should trade equally with our trading partners.  If we let their imports in with limited or no tariffs, then they should do the same. 

The safety issue relates to your questions about Iraq and Afghanistan.  The main responsibility of the President is to keep America safe.  I do believe that the work we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan needs and did need to be done.  We are not fighting a nation state as we would in a traditional war, we are fighting cowardly terrorists who hide behind women, children, mosques, hospitals, etc. and have no problem killing innocent men, women, and children.  We must take the fight to wherever they organize, plan, and train.  Whether that is Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else, we must fight this fight.  The choice is our enemy’s.  When they will stop killing us, we will stop hunting them down.  Whether it is us, or our allies, this work must be done.  The President is being a bit disingenuous when he says our troops will be out of Iraq this year when we have built permanent bases there and will be there for the foreseeable future.  As for the declaration of war, the Constitution requires an Act of Congress to declare war and this is how it should be.  Checks and balances.  If a President wants to declare war, the Congress should agree or not.

I think Iran poses one of the biggest threats to peace in the Middle East.  The people of the free world must not let Iran build nuclear weapons.  I would hope that stiff sanctions would have a positive impact.  Unfortunately it seems that they only harm the people of Iran and delay and legitimate outcome.  We missed a tremendous opportunity to support change in Iran when we simply stood by and let the government slaughter its citizens for protesting the direction their government was going in.  One of the ways to reduce some of the stranglehold the region has on the world economy and the price of oil is to become energy independent ourselves.  The Bakken oil field in the US, according to the USGS, has 3-4.3 billion barrels of oil.  We have many other large oil reserves.  We could become energy independent and take much of the power away from the Middle East while at the same time stop sending $700B a year out of our economy. We should press for very tough sanctions and if that does not work, we should consider what other options we would have to physically stop their development of nuclear weapons.