WASHINGTON— President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney have focused their campaigns on domestic issues, even sliding issues such as health care and education into the third presidential debate, which was supposed to focus on foreign policy.
But knowing how each candidate will handle the country’s foreign affairs— issues that have not taken a vacation during the U.S. campaign — should be as important to voters as the economy and the role of government. Some argue that foreign policy needs to trump other issues, because our national safety and welfare is at stake.
Dominating the foreign policy debate at the end of last month and frequently news headlines is Iran. Both Obama and Romney say they would ensure that Iran will not become a nuclear player, and will stand by Israel in the event that Iran attacks.
While much of the attention has focused on Iran operating from its physical position in the Middle East, Iran may pose a greater threat to the United States by supporting terror movements in Latin America.
Marine Maj. Landon Hutchens said the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which operates as an arm of Iran, has been gaining a foothold in Latin America. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in July said that people affiliated with terrorist groups probably have entered the United States from Latin America, probably by crossing the border with Mexico. The United States may have bigger fish to fry than Obamacare.
The ties between Iran and Venezuela, led by anti-U.S. President Hugo Chavez, are very real, Hutchens said. Air Force Gen. Douglas Fraser testified in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had visited the South American region six times in six years.
“We take Iranian activity in the hemisphere very seriously and we monitor its activities closely,” Fraser said.
Ambassador Roger Noriega, a Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, testified before the Committee on Homeland Security back in 2011 saying Hezbollah was providing weapons and training for drug traffickers operating on the U.S. border with Mexico.
Iran is no longer half a world away, but at our doorstep.
“I believe the Hezbollah/Iranian presence in Latin America constitutes a clear threat to the security of the U.S. homeland,” Noriega testified. “They have the motivation, and they have steadily increasing their ability to act.”
So whoever is elected president Tuesday will face more than a grumbling constituency of voters expecting big changes at home, but also emerging security threats very close by.
