Obama and Romney clash in third and final debate

President Barack Obama and and Republican challenger Mitt Romney clashed over how to deal with crises in  the Middle East on Monday in a third and final debate in Boca Raton, Florida as polls showed them in deadlock two weeks before the November 6 election.

The third debate started where the second ended – on the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Romney sidestepped the opening question about whether the administration had botched it response to the attack in Benghazi  by talking about the Arab Spring, Osama bin Laden, Mali and Syria. He congratulated Obama on killing Osama bin Laden-the cornerstone of the U.S president’s foreign policy achievements – but called for a “robust strategy” to curb violent extremism.

“We’re going to have to recognize that we have to do as the president has done. I congratulate him on — on taking out Osama bin Laden and going after the leadership in al-Qaeda. But we can’t kill our way out of this mess. We’re going to have to put in place a very comprehensive and robust strategy to help the — the world of Islam and other parts of the world, reject this radical violent extremism.” Romney said.

Seeking to gain an advantage with polls showing a tied race, Obama and Romney clashed from the start of their debate.

Obama said that the Republican  presidential candidate, by declaring Russia a “geopolitical foe” of the United States, was seeking to return the United States to a long-abandoned Cold War stance.

“Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaeda is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al Qaeda; you said Russia, in the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years. But Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.”
 
Romney, wanting to make no mistakes that could blunt his recent surge, said Obama’s policies toward the Middle East and North Africa were not stopping a resurgence of the threat from al Qaeda in the region.

“Attacking me is not an agenda,” said Romney. “Attacking me is not how we deal with the challenges of the Middle East.”

He noted he had also called the nuclear challenge from Iran the greatest national security threat to the United States.

When it comes to Russia, Romney criticized Obama for an open-mic comment he made to then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more “flexibility” after america’s Nov. 6 election.

Instead of showing Russian President Vladimir Putin more flexibility, said Romney, “I’ll give him more backbone.”

The debate was the last major opportunity for either candidate to appeal directly to millions of voters – especially the roughly 20 percent who have yet to make up their minds or who could still switch their support at the Nov. 6 election.

World hot spots like Libya and Iran figured prominently, with Romney seeking to put pressure on Obama over what the Republican considers weak responses to the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya on Sept. 11 and Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The two candidates were tied at 46 percent each in the Reuters/Ipsos online daily tracking poll. Other surveys show a similar picture.

Obama came to Boca Raton with the advantage of having led U.S. national security and foreign affairs for the past 3 1/2  years. He gets credit for ending the Iraq war and the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011.

But Romney will have many opportunities to steer the conversation back toward the weak U.S. economy, a topic on which voters see him as more credible. His goal was to appear as a credible alternative to Obama and avoid any gaffes that could deflate his recent surge.

Presidential debates have not always been consequential, but they have had an impact this year.
       
Romney’s strong performance in the first debate in Denver on Oct. 3 helped him recover from a series of stumbles and wiped out Obama’s advantage in opinion polls.  

Obama fared better in their second encounter on Oct. 16, in what was deemed to be one of the most confrontational presidential debates ever, but that has not helped him regain the lead.