America's Future Middle East Policy: Liz Cheney Edition

For Middle East watchers interested in what the next American president will do in the region:

Liz Cheney, the VP's daughter and senior State Department official making Middle East policy, has signed up with Mitt Romney's presidential campaign now that the effort of her preferred candidate, Fred Thompson, has collapsed without a trace. Romney praised Cheney's "years of experience helping to formulate America's foreign policy and to advance democracy and reform in the Middle East."

Cheney is a good match for the candidate who perhaps has spoken the most, unless it's Rudy Giuliani, about America's battle against jihad. He calls it "this century's nightmare: jihadhism, violent, radcial, Islamic fundamentalism." Jihadism's goal, Romney believes, is to "unite the world under a single jihadist caliphate" and "collapse freedom-loving nations, like us." He doesn't threaten to bomb the fundamentalists, but he does say he'll make sure to monitor their phone calls.

Not all people are impressed, especially not the funny ones; Romney's television ad promising to fight jihad quickly became fodder for parodies (see below, thanks to mattyohe and ebaofvn.

Giuliani's foreign policy advisor, Norman Podhoretz, continues to push his "bomb Iran" project, as seen in this blog last week. He wants Bush to do it before he leaves office next year; but Podhoretz says it might be up to the next president--Giuliani, he hopes-- to have the "clarity and courage" to wipe out Iran's nukes with U.S. military force. Note that Romney's jihad ad, not to be outdone, tacks on a promise to "stop Iran," too, but doesn't promise to bomb it. We don't know what Liz thinks about bombing Iran, but we do know her dad has been pushing that option, unsuccessfully, quite alot.

Anybody know how to say "warmonger" in Arabic? OK, Farsi will do.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo