By LEE BALLARD

In 416 B.C, Athens sent a huge armada to conquer Sicily. 

A cakewalk was expected, but through gross miscalculations, they were defeated.  Their democracy was overthrown.  Sparta occupied Athens by 404 B.C.  And their Golden Age ended. 

Athenians listened to Alcibiades and others who pushed them to take an aggressive foreign policy, and they paid dearly.

 There’s a lesson here for us. Mitt Romney doesn’t have personal beliefs on foreign policy like, for example, Ronald Reagan had.

In this campaign we’ve seen him bounce around from position to position on everything from healthcare to abortion and back again. 

 He’s likely to go where his advisers take him ─ and Romney is surrounded by people like Alcibiades.  Today we call them neoconservatives.  Since the Iraq debacle, they’ve been quiet.  But now they’re in positions of influence in the Romney foreign policy team.   

 The Wall Street Journal observed:  “Veterans of George W. Bush’s administration pepper the (Romney) team, including Cofer Black, a former CIA official and executive at the controversial private-security firm Blackwater USA.”

 Back in May, Colin Powell said:  “I don’t know who all of his advisers are, but I’ve seen some of the names and some of them are quite far to the right, and sometimes they, I think, might be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought. For example, when Governor Romney not too long ago said, you know, the Russian Federation is our number-one geostrategic threat.  Well, c’mon Mitt, think. It isn’t the case.”

 In the 21st century the U.S. has fought two wars.  Both had grand objectives that the Bush administration sold to us as worthy uses of American power and resources.  Neither has worked out as they said.  Neocons tend to see cakewalks, like Alcibiades did. 

 If Romney wins, we would not only get the same economic team that brought us the Great Recession, we’d also get the same team that brought us the Iraq War.  

Super-hawk Dan Senor, who spun rosy tales of an Iraqi democracy in the early months of the Iraq War, traveled with Romney to Europe this summer.  Dick Cheney and George Bush are gone, but their advisers and disciples remain.

 This is not a time for war hawks.  We don’t know exactly what Romney means when he says he’ll prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons, for example, but we hear what his neocon advisers are saying.  Polls show at least 60 percent of Americans are now against the war in Afghanistan, one (Fox News) had 78 percent.  

Romney will not discuss his foreign policy views, even when asked, so if he is elected, we could wake up and find a return to a Bush-era world view ─ something completely against the will of the people.

 Obama has shown wisdom in his foreign policy. His reactions are measured. His intuitions are to form alliances. He has been a success. Barack Obama is the better choice on foreign policy.

•

Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.