The Washington Post editorial board, which is usually a reliable ally for Republicans on foreign policy, today offered sharp criticism of Mitt Romney’s claim that Obama sympathized with the attacks on Americans in Egypt and Libya yesterday, which left four American foreign service officers dead and others wounded. The Post said Romney’s attack “is a discredit to his campaign.”

While the Romney campaign’s unofficial press secretary Jen Rubin tried to rally some troops around the GOP presidential nominee, it doesn’t look like the day is turning out to be a big winner for Romney as Republicans are turning out en masse to denounce his attacks:

“I don’t think President Obama sympathizes with those who attacked us. I don’t think any American does.” — Former Bush administration DHS Secretary Tom Ridge

“In the wake of this violence, the rush by Republicans — including Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin and scores of other conservative critics — to condemn him for policies they claim helped precipitate the attacks is as tortured in its reasoning as it is unseemly in its timing.” — Mark Salter, former chief of staff and top campaign aide to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

“They were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it’s just completely blown up,” said a very senior Republican foreign policy hand, who called the statement an “utter disaster” and a “Lehman moment” — a parallel to the moment when John McCain, amid the 2008 financial crisis, failed to come across as a steady leader. … “This is just unbelievable — when they decide to play on it they completely bungle it.”

But [a former Romney adviser] does have a good read on Romney–a man with a healthy sense of pride, and who’s already invested in the idea of Obama as an appeaser. It was the only plausible explanation the adviser could think of for how “they stepped in it,” in his words.

“I don’t feel that Mr. Romney has been doing himself any favors, say in the past few hours, perhaps since last night. Sometimes when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go.” — Conservative commentator Peggy Noonan

“This is a time when we all should reflect on those who continue to give, even the last measure, of service and sacrifice, to promoting and defending America’s interests abroad. This is above all a reminder that politics should end at the waters edge.” — Jon Huntsman, former Republican governor of Utan and 2012 GOP presidential candidate.

The Post editorial board had some advice for Romney. “He would do well to consider the example of Republican former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, who issued a statement Wednesday lamenting ‘the tragic loss of life at our consulate,’ praising Mr. Stevens as ‘a wonderful officer and a terrific diplomat’ and offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ to ‘all the loved ones of the fallen.’”

Obama shot back at Romney this afternoon, saying he has “a tendency to shoot first and aim later.” “It’s important for you to make sure that the statements that you make are backed up by the facts,” the president told 60 Minutes. “And that you’ve thought through the ramifications before you make them.”

Weekly Standard editor and top neocon Bill Kristol hasn’t been afraid to criticize party nominee Mitt Romney in the past, but today he’s on his side. Kristol not only approved of Romney’s statement claiming President Obama “sympathized” with the rioters who attacked U.S. diplomats in Egypt and Libya, but also claimed “the events of September 11, 2012″ (carefully not stating the 9/11 anniversary outright) was an ideal time to go after Obama’s purported “weakness” on foreign policy. Kristol, writing on the Standard’s blog, said:

One can question the timing and tone of Mitt Romney’s statement last night. One can note he wasn’t as fluent and clear as he might have been at his press conference this morning. Still, the fact remains that the events of September 11, 2012, represent a big moment for the country. Romney is right to sense this, and to seize on this moment as an occasion to explain the difference between his foreign policy and President Obama’s. He’s right to reject the counsel of the mainstream media, which is to keep quiet and give President Obama a pass.

Kristol went on to say that “Romney is right to bring home the weakness of the Obama administration, exemplified in the disgraceful statement issued yesterday, September 11, by the American embassy in Cairo.”

It’s unclear why Kristol had to repeatedly write “September 11,” when referring to what happened yesterday in Egypt and Libya, but his criticism was echoed by prominent Republican columnist Byron York, who wrote that “Romney was, and is, right. As events in Benghazi and Cairo unfolded, the Obama administration’s first instinct was to apologize for any offense Muslims might have taken.”

The release Kristol and York are referring to came from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo while it was under threat but before violence started; the official Obama Administration statement after the assaults quoted the President saying “we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.” While Romney accused Obama of “sympathiz[ing] with those who waged the attacks” as a consequence of the embassy’s criticism of the anti-Islam film that may have played a role in instigating the violence, Romney himself condemned an anti-Islam provocation in 2010, saying “Burning the Quran is wrong on every level. It puts troops in danger, and it violates a founding principle of our republic.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign is blaming President Obama and his administration for the attacks that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya on Tuesday.

Rioters attacked the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt and the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya to protest an American-made anti-Islam YouTube video (reports are surfacing that the Libya attack was already planned and the protest was used as a cover).

Romney has received widespread criticism, from fellow Republicans and mainstream media figures, for accusing Obama of sympathizing with the attackers and has released a set of talking points for allies and surrogates to respond. Among them, the Romney teams blames the Obama administration’s foreign policy for the attacks:

– We have seen a foreign policy of weakness and decline in American influence and respect. Yesterday, we saw the consequences of this perceived weakness. [...]

– We have seen a foreign policy of weakness, indecision, and a decline in American influence and respect – and yesterday we saw the consequences.

Romney issued his attack before news broke that the violence in Libya had resulted in the deaths of the U.S. ambassador and three of his deputies. But in a press conference on today, the GOP presidential nominee stood by the statement.

Sunday’s attacks on the the Gaza-Egypt-Israel border — in which gunmen stormed the Rafah border crossing, killed 16 Egyptian security officers, and then smashed through a barrier into Israel before being stopped and killed by Israeli forces — highlights the serious danger posed by an increasingly lawless Sinai region, in which extremists are gaining a stronger foothold.

Issander El Amrani has a good post on what is known about how the attacks went down, and the response by Israeli, Palestinian, and Egyptian authorities. What’s most worrying, according to El Amrani, “is the lack of law and order, and presence of the state, in Sinai since the January 2011 uprising — and the continuing absence of policies to deal with the neglect of this region for the last 30 years.”

I wrote about this last September and continue to believe that Egypt needs to act to reimpose itself strongly in the area: through a zero-tolerance for criminal gangs and armed groups, Bedouin or foreign, and through a genuine policy of development, job-creation and integration of Sinai into the national economy. It’s not easy, it’s long-overdue, and it needs to start sooner than later even if strong-arm tactics that will probably be involved may cause more trouble in the short-term.

The problem of security and growing extremism in the Sinai isn’t new. Here’s the New York Times reporting on it in 2005 and 2006. But with the Egyptian revolt, the end of Hosni Mubarak’s rule, and the creation of a new Egyptian government, even less attention has been paid, and the problem has gotten worse.

As a result of Sunday’s attack, an Egyptian security source told Reuters that Egypt would begin to seal off the smuggling tunnels the lie beneath the Egypt-Gaza border at Rafah.

Earlier this year, I visited Gaza, via the Sinai, and wrote about the massive, and hugely profitable, tunnel trade that has risen up as a result of the blockade enforced by both Israel and Egypt. The taxes levied on these smuggling activities are a key source of revenue for Gaza’s Hamas government, and smugglers on both the Egypt and Gaza side of the border are making lots of money off of them, so expect there to be a massive outcry if the Egyptian authorities attempt anything more than a symbolic sealing off of a few tunnels, as they have done in the past.

Commenting on the attack on Monday morning, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “I think that the risk of a very large terrorist attack was averted, and this was a very important operational success in the battle that is raging there and maybe a proper wake-up call for the Egyptians to take matters into their own hands on their side in a stronger manner.” According to an IDF investigation of the events, the Israelis had intelligence that an attack was imminent, and took precautions. Information was also shared with the Egyptians, who apparently did not take the warnings seriously. Instead, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood nonsensically accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of being behind Sunday’s attack in an effort to undermine Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Brotherhood.

When I visited Israel last month, the problem of the Sinai was often brought up in meetings with security officials, who noted that an attack on Israel emanating from there could very quickly escalate out of control. Thankfully, that didn’t happen here, but it’s a clear sign that it’s time to take security in the Sinai more seriously. In the words of one security analyst, the peace between Israel and Egypt forged by President Carter at Camp David in 1979 “is one of the most important accomplishments of the United States in the Middle East in the last forty years,” and it’s in the interest of all the parties to make sure that that peace does not unravel.

Fox News host Sean Hannity, during an interview with Liz Cheney, cited an allegedly faked interview with newly elected Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in an attempt to attack President Obama for supporting Egypt’s first free election.

Morsi raised eyebrows with the alleged interview on Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency by saying Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel needed to be reevaluated and calling for robust ties to Iran. But it turns out the whole interview — supposedly only hours before election results were announced — might have been faked.

Fars duped some international news outlets, like Reuters, which scrubbed the original story and issued a new story where a top Morsi aid denied that he was even interviewed by Fars.

The reissued Reuters story came out just after 5 p.m., nearly four full hours before Hannity’s show took the airwaves. But that didn’t stop the right-wing host from citing the disputed interview:

HANNITY: But just who is this administration relieved to have as the Egypt’s next leader? Well, for starters. He’s no ally of Israel. Morsi in the past has called Israelis, quote, “vampires and killers.”

And today in an interview with an Iranian news agency, he is quoted as saying he intends to reconsider the Camp David accord. Yet despite these outrageous comments, the White House is relieved?

Watch the video:

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi was formerly a leader, has said it would, according to the AP, “seek changes to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel without canceling it.” Furthermore, in his first speech after being declared president, Morsi announced: “We will preserve all national and international agreements” — a clear nod to the Israeli peace deal. And the White House was “relieved” not because the Muslim Brotherhood won a free election, but because last week it looked as if Egypt’s transition to democracy might be faltering under the weight of a soft-coup by transitional military leaders.

Fox News even reported hours before Hannity’s show that “a Morsi spokesman denied he did an interview with the Iranian news service who quotes Morsi promising to renew ties between the two countries.”

At RFE/RL, Golnaz Esfandiari pointed out that even fellow Iranian state media got in on the action of doubting the veracity of the Fars interview. So Hannity was duped by the Iranian propaganda even longer than the Iranian government itself.

On Sunday, election monitors declared Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi the victor in Egypt’s first democratic election since Hosni Mubarak stepped down 16 months ago amidst the Arab Spring protests. At least one US congressman is not happy about the news, and once again has resorted to anti-Muslim rhetoric in the process.

Allen West (R-FL) took to his Facebook page and called the Arab Spring a “radical Islamic nightmare,” before proposing that the United States reaffirm support for “Coptic Christians and Israel” and cut off foreign aid for Egypt:

I call upon President Barack Obama to cut off American foreign aid to Egypt, denounce the results of this election, repudiate the Muslim Brotherhood, and all radical Islamist political entities.

West’s knee-jerk reaction to the Muslim Brotherhood completely discounts the historic significance of the Egyptian elections. As The New York Times notes, Morsi’s victory is the first sign of the emergence of an electoral democracy in a country accustomed to military rule. He is just Egypt’s fifth president, and the nation’s first from outside the military.

Perhaps more noteworthy, the ruling transitional military coucil officially recognized the outcome of the election, and are preparing to formally hand over power, a sign that the violence many feared may be avoided entirely and that, as the White House mentioned, the transition to democracy may stay on track despite numerous setbacks last week.

West also sought to tie President Obama to the election results, writing “what an incredible faux pas by the second coming of President Jimmy Carter, the Obama Administration.” In fact, many Republicans initially applauded President Obama’s handling of the early turmoil in Egypt, and there is no evidence to suggest that the Obama administration’s policies helped sway the elections one way or another.

The Muslim Brotherhood has long been a bête noire for West, who sees Brotherhood infiltration even at the F.B.I. His views toward American Muslims in general, likely informed by his associations with Islamophobic groups, include other similarly wild-eyed fantasies where all Muslims are responsible for the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on America.