It’s been difficult for the Republicans to attack President Obama on foreign policy, particularly seeing that he oversaw and ordered the operation that ended up killing Osama bin Laden. But the Republicans have a strategy on that: pretend Obama had nothing to do with it. Rick Santorum says repeatedly that Obama had no role in getting bin Laden. “The president doesn’t deserve credit” for getting bin Laden, Santorum said last week. “The people who deserve credit for that were the military whose mission it was to find them,” he said.

Rick Perry has picked up on this too. CNN reports that after Perry called Obama’s foreign policy an “abject failure,” a student pointed out that the President should get some recognition for getting bin Laden. But instead of agreeing with this obvious conclusion, Perry took the Santorum route — denial:

“I would suggest to you that it was Navy SEALs and our intelligence community that was the reason bin Laden was taken out, not the President of the United States,” he said.

Asked again by CNN if he believed that the president should be given some share of the credit for bin Laden’s death, Perry answered: “I’m almost positive it was Navy SEALs.”

Of course Perry and Santorum are correct; without the Navy SEAL team and their skills and professionalism, bin Laden might still be alive today. And Obama said so himself. “These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence and military operations in our nation’s history,” he said. But of course it goes without saying that the raid would not have taken place if not for Obama’s push to “redouble” efforts to find bin Laden and his order to raid the al Qaeda leader’s compound in Pakistan, a decision Robert Gates said was “one of the most courageous calls I’ve ever seen a president make.”

But Perry and co. will most likely still carry on living in this denial. After all, despite all of the turmoil the United States and the world have faced throughout history, the Texas governor believes “the world has never been as dangerous as it is today” because of Obama.

An accusation that a vice president led a death squad targeting police and government officials roiled Iraqi politics yesterday — just a day after the last of the U.S. forces there withdrew across the border. The crisis deepened today when, speaking from the autonomous Kurdish north — out of reach of the central government’s security forces — the Sunni politician denied the charges and accused Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of using the warrant as a ploy to consolidate power. Does any of this dramatic political maneuvering surprise the Iraqi people? Judging by a poll released yesterday, probably not.

According to results of the survey by Zogby Research Services (PDF), Iraqis expressed concern about the departure of U.S. forces, but are nonetheless cautiously optimistic. Six in 10 Iraqis, said a report on the results, feared a possible civil war, partition of the country, outsized foreign influence by neighbors, terrorism, or economic woes. The concerns played into mixed Iraqi emotions:

Iraqi views can again be described as conflicted: 22% saying they are happy; 35% saying they are worried; and 30% saying they feel both emotions.

Iraqis, overall, feel that their country is “worse off” because of the U.S.-led war there — perhaps, for example, because Baghdad recently ranked as the worst place on the planet to live — with strong divergences across ethnic groups. Likewise, in the U.S., respondents were split between political affiliations about whether they thought Iraq was better or worse off. This chart breaks down the various responses to the survey:

So, if not themselves, who do Iraqis think became better situated vis-à-vis their country?

When asked who benefited the most from the war in Iraq, Iraqis most frequently point to Iran (54%), the United States (48%), and Iraqi elites (40%). Additionally, more than one-quarter of Iraqis see al-Qaeda as a chief beneficiary of the war. Only 4% think the Iraqi people benefited the most from the war.

Majorities in five of the six other countries surveyed — “Egypt (88%), Lebanon (86%), Tunisia (81%), Jordan (66%), Saudi Arabia (58%), and Iran (50%)” — agreed with the plurality of Iraqis who saw the U.S. benefiting the most, with nearly half (47%) of respondents from the United Arab Emirates sharing this view.

The survey — of 1,000 Iraqis across sect, ethnicity, cities, regions, age groups and socio-economic status — did bear out recent reporting on Iraqi resistance to undue Iranian influence in their affairs. Overall, two thirds of Iraqis view Iran unfavorably, with 90 percent of Sunnis, 83 percent of Kurds, and, notably, a bare majority of Shiites — Iran’s co-sectarians — holding that view.

All told, Iraqis responded with a guarded optimism about the prospects for their country’s future. While, only 21 percent overall both want a democracy and think it possible, 55 precent of Iraqis are either “very optimistic” (9 percent) or “somewhat optimistic” (46 percent) that Iraq will be stable and make progress.

During a recent interview with Newsweek, Vice President Biden outlined part of the administration’s strategy about how it plans to end the 10-year long war in Afghanistan. It’s no secret that the United States and its allies have been in talks with the Taliban. Just yesterday, senior officials told Reuters that this negotiation track has “reached a critical juncture.” Biden expounded on the overall policy with Newsweek:

BIDEN: We’re engaged in a reconciliation process. Whether it will work or not is another question. But we are in a position where if Afghanistan ceased and desisted from being a haven for people who do damage and have as a target the United States of America and their allies, that’s good enough. That’s good enough. We’re not there yet.

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests. If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.

Of course, the right wing ignored everything Biden had said and focused on the “Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy” line. Mitt Romney was particularly perturbed, tweeting that the comment is “an outrageous affront to our troops carrying out the fight in Afghanistan.” His campaign also released a statement, saying that Biden and President Obama “must immediately explain themselves.”

But as the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen points out, Romney may have to have a little chat with his top adviser on Afghanistan, who has endorsed the same policy Biden laid out with Newsweek:

And as it turns out, Romney’s top foreign policy advisor on Afghanistan happens to agree with Biden’s line about talks with the Taliban. In June, [Former Bush administration official James] Shinn endorsed direct negotiations with the Taliban, and in August, Shinn endorsed “a negotiated settlement” with the Taliban, which would give them a formal role in the Afghan government. “Negotiation does not represent an easy or early way out of Afghanistan for the United States and its NATO allies, but it is the only way in which this war is likely to end,” he argued.

What are the foreign policy differences between what Joe Biden said and what Romney’s top foreign policy advisor on Afghanistan said? There are no differences.

“I do not negotiate with the Taliban,” Romney said during last month’s GOP foreign policy debate. Indeed, Benen writes, “I’ll look forward to the Romney campaign explaining why its own foreign policy is misguided.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) found his hawkish rhetoric against Iran challenged by an unexpected source, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. Romney, who just last week said President Barack Obama was “weak and timid” for not ordering an airstrike to destroy a U.S. drone downed in Iran, faced harsh questions about the possible consequences of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities:

ROMNEY: I’m ready to make sure we have military options combined with crippling sanctions.

BILL O’REILLY: Of course we have military options.

MITT ROMNEY: But we have developed in a way that Iran understands we would use military options.

O’REILLY: You’re a tough guy? You’re going to stare them down and say ‘Look, I’m gonna use them’? If you bomb Iran that starts World War III. You know that. They’re going to try to block Hormuz. Oil will double. The unintended consequences to the United States all across the Muslim world will be horrible. That’s what Iran is banking on.

ROMNEY: Then there’s the other side of the story, not taking crippling sanctions and treating them as the pariah they are and preparing military options. If you don’t do those things Iran has a nuclear weapon, nuclear material will ultimately be used.

Watch it:

O’Reilly isn’t the only voice suggesting that a military strike on Iran could have disastrous consequences.

Former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan called bombing Iran “the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard” and warned that a military strike could actually push the Iranians to “obtain a nuclear weapon as quickly as possible.”

And in July, former George W. Bush administration National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley outlined the “devastating effect” that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could have on the U.S. and global economies.

Romney had no answer for O’Reilly’s question about the the Iranian response to a U.S. or Israeli military strike. But the strong likelihood of regional instability and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz could have very real economic and security consequence for the U.S.

As Congress passed the $662 billion defense authorization bill last week, critics worried that the bill authorized indefinite military detention for terror suspects, including American citizens, captured inside the United States. However, the bill does not change existing law on the subject, and CAP’s Ken Gude believes, “It does not limit or expand existing detention authority.”

Yet Rep. Jeff Landry (R-LA) wants to make sure. Landry told the Hill newspaper yesterday that he has asked House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) to revisit the issue in the defense bill to make sure that the language does not give the U.S. government new rights to hold U.S. citizens without due process:

“We have assurances that they would work to clarify the language,” Landry told The Hill. “I have a commitment from the chairman that the type of language I have is the type of language he would use to clarify that.”

Landry has introduced H.R. 3676, which would amend the NDAA by saying that “no United States citizen may be detained against his or her will without all the rights of due process afforded to the citizen in a court ordained or established by or under Article III of the Constitution of the United States.”

As the Hill also notes, the defense bill Congress passed last week “does say explicitly that no new authority is created to detain U.S. citizens, and that the military detention language does not apply to citizens.”

Landry however fears the bill has some holes. “The problem we’ve had is that Congress over the last 30 years has just not done a good job of basically telling the administration through legislation what the confines of its power are,” Landry said. “All we’re trying to do is say look, this is what Congress is trying to intend.”