In an attempt to pull off an upset in tonight’s Iowa caucus, GOP contender Rick Santorum is resorting to ever more vicious attacks on President Obama to prove his conservative bona fides.

On the campaign trail today he repeated his claim that Obama has consistently “sided with our enemies,” and refused to give the president credit for Osama bin Laden’s death:

Speaking on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Santorum was asked by George Stephanopoulos to explain his comment at a rally in Iowa on Monday that in international conflicts, Obama has “sided with our enemies on almost every single one.”

Santorum doubled down on his comments, saying Obama has “appeased and pandered” on the international stage and that the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan, presented as a foreign-policy success by the White House, was set in motion by the Bush administration.

Santorum said that operations to kill bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders were “missions that were defined” by the Bush administration.” Obama “simply went on and executed those decisions,” he said.

Santorum added, “This is a president who has gotten it wrong every time,” claiming that Obama has alienated allies from Britain to the Czech Republic.

As far as his bin Laden assertion goes, it’s been well documented that the Bush administration missed an opportunity to get bin Laden in Tora Bora in 2001. Bush himself stated publicly that he wasn’t spending much time thinking about finding the al Qaeda leader.

By contrast, Obama made getting bin Laden a priority as soon as he took office, and dedicated considerable time and manpower to the mission. He oversaw and approved the final successful plan to kill bin Laden, taking on the considerable risk if the mission failed.

The Republicans running for president this election cycle have tried to distinguish themselves from President Obama on Iran by increasingly taking a more militaristic stance toward the Islamic Republic, particularly over its nuclear program. Much of the divide between the president and the GOP candidates has been rhetorical, as substantively, those like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney call for (or misrepresent) policies Obama has already enacted. Then on Sunday, Rick Santorum upped the ante, saying that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities is part of his “plan.”

Last night on Fox News, host Sean Hannity asked Romney if he agreed with Santorum, but the former Massachusetts governor said he wouldn’t go that far. “I don’t want to threaten specific action right now,” Romney said:

HANNITY: Do you agree with what Rick Santorum has been saying the last couple of days and that he would take out their nuclear site if he is president?

ROMNEY: Look, I want to talk about what I would do if I were President today. And if I’m elected what I do immediately which is put in place the crippling sanctions against Iran. Stand with the people in Iran who are dissident voices. And prepare military options. I don’t want to threaten specific action right now. But we, of course, have to have military options. And we have to be prepared to take those options to make sure that Iran does not become nuclear.

Watch the clip:

Romney has ramped up the hawkish rhetoric on Iran throughout the campaign. Indeed, he called Obama “weak and timid” for not ordering a military strike to take out the downed American drone in Iran last month. Many of Romney’s top foreign policy advisers have called for an attack on Iran, with one making the case in Foreign Affairs in November of “striking before it’s too late.” But it doesn’t appear that Romney — like Santorum — wants to make war with Iran an official part of his campaign platform…yet.

Risking her life of comfort and stature by her own admission, Princess Basma Bint Saud Bin Abdul Aziz, a Saudi royal living in London, made bold calls for reform in her country during a wide-ranging interview with the U.K.’s Independent newspaper. The rare criticism from inside the royal family — and by a woman from a nation with pervasive gender issues, to boot — came from the youngest child of the country’s second king, Saud.

While avoiding direct criticisms of her uncle King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s current ruler, the 47-year-old Basma blamed ministers for incompetence and lamented lack of accountability for the wealthy. She reserved her sharpest criticisms for the Saudi religious police — officially the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices, but known as the mutawa. She blamed them for sectarianism, sexism, and labeled them “dangerous” for society:

This is the atmosphere you have now. It is such a non-tolerant atmosphere, even of other sects.…

Our religious police has the most dangerous effect on society – the segregation of genders, putting the wrong ideas in the heads of men and women, producing psychological diseases that never existed in our country before, like fanaticism. The mutawa are everywhere, trying to lead society to a very virtuous life that doesn’t exist. Everything is now behind closed doors.

Basma is no stranger to criticizing the ills of the country her family rules as an absolute monarchy. In July, she called this year’s Saudi invasion and repression of Shia-dominated pro-democracy protests in Bahrain a “faux pas” while talking with the BBC. The divorcée and business woman told the Independent she recently faced pressure to self-censor her writings, which deal with issues such as poverty and women’s rights.

Basma said the recent campaign by Saudi women to win the right to drive — which has won international plaudits but met opposition from Saudi religious authorities — did not go far enough. “Why don’t we actually fight for a woman’s right even to complain about being beaten up,” she said. “That is more important than driving.” (HT: Sultan Al Qassemi)