His foreign policy statement is called "An American Century," a term originally coined by Henry Luce in a 1941 Life magazine editorial, but more recently associated with the neocon think tank Project For A New American Century whose membership transferred almost en masse into the Bush Administration, led by founding member Dick Cheney. They'd been harping for getting rid of Saddam since 1997, so it's little surprise they used an attack by Saudi and Egyptian nationals with an organization based in Afghanistan as a pretense to launch an invasion of Iraq. And believed all their own hot air about "cakewalks" and the rest.
Romney's "Special Advisors":
Cofer Black
Christopher Burnham
Michael Chertoff
Eliot Cohen
Norm Coleman
John Danilovich
Paula J. Dobriansky
Eric Edelman
Michael Hayden
Kerry Healey
Kim Holmes
Robert Joseph
Robert Kagan
John Lehman
Andrew Natsios
Meghan O’Sullivan
Walid Phares
Pierre Prosper
Mitchell Reiss
Daniel Senor
Jim Talent
Vin Weber
Richard Williamson
Dov Zakheim
http://www.mittromney.com/blogs/mitts-view/2011/10/mitt-romney-announces-foreign-policy-and-national-security-advisory-team
ThinkProgress highlights a few:
ELIOT COHEN
Just months after the war in Afghanistan began, Eliot Cohen — who “was closely affiliated with the circle of hawks who surrounded Vice President Dick Cheney” — was agitating for a war in Iraq, calling it the “big prize.” As a co-founder of the Project for A New American Century, a neoconservative pressure organization critical to the development of the Iraq War, Cohen helped push the case for toppling Saddam. Though critical of the execution of the Iraq War, Cohen appears to have drawn only the most limited of conclusions, as he was seen as recently as 2009 making the case for a new war in Iran.
COFER BLACK
The Daily Beast described former C.I.A. officer Cofer Black as “Mitt Romney’s trusted envoy to the dark side”: “he often acts as the campaign’s in-house intelligence officer.” When the two first linked up during Romney’s first campaign, Black still had his position as a vice chairman of the controversial security contractor known then as Blackwater. In 2007, Romney refused to rule out torture of terrorism suspects, and said he’d have to consult with Black about it. Black led the C.I.A. counterterror shop when the harsh interrogations were carried out and he took the lead on President Bush’s secret rendition program. His speakers’ bureau bio says Black “conceived, planned and led the CIA’s war in Afghanistan.” In a history of the C.I.A., Tim Weiner wrote that Black was “the man who vowed to bring Osama bin Laden’s head to George W. Bush on a pike and did not make good on that promise.”
WALID PHARES
When you’re too controversial for Congressman Peter King’s hearings on terrorism among American Muslims, that ought to be a warning flag for any prospective employers. Yet Walid Phares, a Lebanese Christian with a long history of involvement in violent militias back home, is prominently listed as a “special adviser” in official Romney campaign literature. Investigations into Phares’ role in the brutal Lebanese Civil War suggests he was personally responsible for infusing Christian theology into the official ideology of the sectarian Lebanese Forces, an important fighting group in the war. Phares also has numerous links with the Islamophobic anti-Sharia movement.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/07/25/576331/romney-foreign-policy-advisers/
The neocon chickenhawks want to be "more equal than others" again.
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