President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney took one more pass at each other Monday night, arguing foreign policy in a debate televised from Lynn University in Boca Raton. Obama persistently attacked Romney as naive on foreign affairs, while Romney tried to pull off a balancing act, projecting a more moderate outlook while asserting the nation’s standing had slipped under his rival. Here are some highlights:

On Syria
Obama — What we’ve done is organize the international community, saying (Syrian President Bashar) Assad has to go. We’ve mobilized sanctions against that government. We have made sure that they are isolated. We have provided humanitarian assistance, and we are helping the opposition organize .  . . . But ultimately, Syrians are going to have to determine their own future.

Romney —  Syria’s an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab world. It’s their route to the sea. It’s the route for them to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon, which threatens, of course, our ally Israel. And so seeing Syria remove Assad is a very high priority for us.

On Egypt
Obama —    The notion that we would have tanks run over those young people who were in Tahrir Square, that is not the kind of American leadership that John F. Kennedy talked about 50 years ago. But  . . . now that you have a democratically elected government in Egypt, they have to make sure that they take responsibility for protecting religious minorities — and we have put significant pressure on them to make sure they’re doing that — to recognize the rights of women. . . .These countries can’t develop if young women are not given the kind of education that they need.  
 
Romney — I supported (Obama’s) actions (surrounding the removal of President Mubarak) there.   I wish that, looking back at the beginning of the president’s term and even further back, that we’d have recognized that there was a growing energy and passion for freedom in that part of the world and that we would have worked more aggressively with our friend, and with other friends in the region.

On Libya and the Middle East
Obama — Despite this tragedy, you had tens of thousands of Libyans after the events in Benghazi marching and saying America’s our friend. We stand with them. Now that represents the opportunity we have to take advantage of. And you know, Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you agree that we have been successful in going after al-Qaida, but . . . your strategy previously has been one that has been all over the map and is not designed to keep Americans safe or to build on the opportunities that exist in the Middle East.

Romney — My strategy’s pretty straightforward, which is to go after the bad guys, to make sure we do our very best to interrupt them, to kill them, to take them out of the picture. But my strategy is broader than that. That’s important, of course, but the key that we’re going to have to pursue is a pathway to get the Muslim world to be able to reject extremism on its own. We don’t want another Iraq. We don’t want another Afghanistan. That’s not the right course for us. The right course for us is to make sure that we go after the people who are leaders of these various anti-American groups and these jihadists, but also help the Muslim world.

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