Former Massachusetts Gov. and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Monday that the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group is not just a military one, but an ideological one and that “radical Islamists” do not share America’s values.
“The words do matter because this is not just a military conflict — it’s also an ideological conflict,” Mr. Romney said on NBC’s “Today” program. “And we have to understand that there are people in the world who don’t think the way we do.”
Mr. Romney had been asked about former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton’s declining to say the U.S. is at war with “radical Islam.” She said during Saturday’s presidential debate she doesn’t think the country is at war with Islam, but with jihadists and violent extremists.
“The president keeps talking about our shared values throughout the world — that’s not the case,” Mr. Romney said. “These radical Islamists — they do not share our values. They have very different values. And this means we’re going to have to rely on the world of Islam, the major Islamic nations, to take a lead in helping promote a very different view of Islam: peace and understanding, as opposed to the radicalization that’s going on. The Saudis and UAE and Qatar and others are going to have to take a leading role changing hearts and minds in the world of Islam.”
The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed credit for the recent attacks in Paris that killed at least 129 people.
In a new Washington Post opinion piece, Mr. Romney also said that America needs to do whatever it takes to win the fight — even “boots on the ground” — and that the west must “stop the insanity of welcoming hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East without knowing who exactly they are.”
“Women, children and the elderly, perhaps, but not thousands upon thousands of single young men,” Mr. Romney wrote.
“We have the best-equipped and most dedicated military for good reason,” Mr. Romney wrote. “The president must stop trying to placate his political base by saying what he won’t do and tell Americans what he will do.
“We must do what it takes,” he wrote.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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