AIPAC 2012: Romney, Santorum, Gingrich Rip into Obama: 'He Has Turned His Back on Israel'

Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are all scheduled to give speeches at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) via satellite on Super Tuesday, one of the most important events in the Republican presidential primary race.

Before the three candidates took time out of Super Tuesday to appear, however, all three made heated statements dismissing President Obama's own AIPAC speech on Monday, calling for tougher talk when it came to dealing with Iran and claiming that Obama's rhetoric on Israel didn't hold up when it came to his actions.

'When the chips are down, I have Israel's back.'

In his speech to AIPAC on Monday, President Obama, whose uncle helped liberate a concentration camp, spent a good portion of his speech discussing Israel's founding, and its right to its homeland. Cautioning against rash military action, he advocated continuing moves like international sanctions and weakening the government in Tehran as a way to contain Iran.

Obama also, however, asserted Israel's right to self-defense, and said that America would use all the options at hand to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including military force.

So there should not be a shred of doubt by now--when the chips are down, I have Israel's back, Obama told the crowd at AIPAC.

Which is why, if during this political season, you hear some questions regarding my administration's support for Israel, remember that it's not backed up by the facts. And remember that the U.S.-Israel relationship is simply too important to be distorted by partisan politics.

America's national security is too important, he said. Israel's security is too important.

'Someone will leak it.'

The call to avoid partisan politics on the eve of Super Tuesday, however, had barely been put forward when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich began to pick apart Obama's position on Israel.

Gingrich made an appearance on The Sean Hannity Show on Monday night to discuss his chances for Super Tuesday. In between his assertion that he had a chance in the South, in Ohio and even in Romney's home turf of Massachusetts, however, the candidate took the opportunity to slam Obama's handling of the Israeli-Iranian conflict.

He said that Israel shouldn't give the Obama administration any advance warning if it decided to attack Iran, saying the president's administration couldn't be trusted to keep Israel's plans a secret.

If I were the Israelis, I wouldn't give this administration one minute's notice, because someone will leak it, he told the Fox News host. When you have an operational secret, you want to keep it as close hold as possible.

'They will learn some very painful lessons.'

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney also spoke out against President's Obama's speech on Monday, writing an op-ed for The Washington Post in which he promised to match Obama's assertion that he will push for sanctions, commit the U.S. to Israel's security and threaten Iran with military action, making the distinction that he will match that rhetoric with action.

Romney began by comparing the situation between Iran and Israel today to the Iran hostage crisis, which began Nov. 4, 1979 under Democratic President Jimmy Carter and ended under newly-elected Republican President Ronald Reagan.

On Jan. 20, 1981, in the hour that Reagan was sworn into office, Iran released the hostages, Romney wrote. The Iranians well understood that Reagan was serious about turning words into action in a way that Jimmy Carter never was.

The parallel between Carter and Obama was clear, and likely to be part of Romney's larger strategy against the president if he secures the Republican presidential nomination.

But by comparing Obama to Carter, Romney was also making a clear parallel between himself and GOP icon Ronald Reagan, a point he continued to drive home throughout the op-ed.

For three decades now, the ayatollahs running Iran have sponsored terrorism around the world, he began. If we’ve learned anything from Sept. 11, 2001, it is that terrorism in the nuclear age holds nightmarish possibilities for horror on a mass scale.

“I will take every measure necessary to check the evil regime of the ayatollahs,” Romney continued. “Until Iran ceases its nuclear-bomb program, I will press for ever-tightening sanctions, acting with other countries if we can but alone if we must. I will speak out on behalf of the cause of democracy in Iran and support Iranian dissidents who are fighting for their freedom.”

“Most important, I will buttress my diplomacy with a military option that will persuade the ayatollahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions, he added. Only when they understand that at the end of that road lies not nuclear weapons but ruin will there be a real chance for a peaceful resolution.”

My foreign policy plan to avert this catastrophe is plain, he ended. Either the ayatollahs will get the message, or they will learn some very painful lessons about the meaning of American resolve.

'He has turned his back on Israel.'

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney's skepticism over President Obama's strategy in Israel, and their dismissal of his assurance that the state was a top priority, were crystal clear.

Perhaps no candidate, however, was as harsh in his condemnation of the sitting president as former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who claimed that Obama had turned his back on Israel and that his handling of Middle East policy was naive and incredibly dangerous.

We have a president who doesn't recognize the historic roots of the state of Israel, where they are, what they are. He never mentions it, never talks about it, Santorum asserted while on the campaign trail in Ohio.

He never talks about the basis for the justification for the state of Israel. All he talks about is some sort of solution that has to be pushed for. Of course that solution always seems to favor everyone but Israel. He consistently undermines Israel on every front.

If Barack Obama is re-elected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change, Romney told a crowd in Snellville, Georgia, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Rick Santorum also rejected Obama's call for bipartisan support on his actions in Israel, saying it was nothing but a smoke screen to hide his own incompetence.

To blame Rick Santorum and other Republican candidates for our talk about what's going on in Iran, as this president continues weak policy after weak policy, out there, with puffery about how tough he is going to be in making sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon, and then does virtually nothing, Santorum was quoted as saying by CNN.

'We should not be their master.'

All three GOP presidential hopefuls will get a chance today to further outline their own policies on Israel and Iran. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are all scheduled to speak at AIPAC before returning to the campaign trail for the last crucial hours of Super Tuesday, where ten states' delegates will be up for grabs in one night.

The fourth candidate in the race, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, is not scheduled to speak to the group. Paul has set himself apart from the other candidates by advocating a non-interventionist policy in regards to Iran, and has said that he would cut all foreign aid, including that to Israel.

Paul, however, insists that his position, far from being anti-Israel, is actually the best policy for the state, since it sets up the relationship between Israel and the U.S. as autonomous partners, not making the state a servant of U.S. policy.

We should be their friend and their trading partner,” Paul has said. “They are a democracy and we share many values with them.

But we should not be their master. We should not dictate where their borders will be nor should we have veto power over their foreign policy...We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.”

Iran and its alleged nuclear weapon ambitions will likely headline the speeches of Gingrich, Romney and Santorum.