Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), left, and staff members, watches the vice-presidential debate from his suite at the the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C. 
 
 Oct. 11, 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), left, and staff members, watches the vice-presidential debate from his suite at the the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C. Melina Mara/The Washington Post 
 
 In what was billed as a major foreign policy address, Mitt Romney blasted President Obama’s leadership in the Middle East on Monday, saying that a withering of American resolve had made the region a more dangerous place where the United States has less leverage. 
 
 “Hope is not a strategy,’’ Romney said. 
 
 Romney sought to capitalize on the violence in Libya and Egypt that has made Obama vulnerable in the national security realm long seen as his strength. The Republican nominee vowed to “change course in the Middle East,” including by taking a hard line on Iran and arming Syrian rebels. 
 
 Romney said he knows “the president hopes for a safer, freer, and a more prosperous Middle East allied with the United States. I share this hope.” 
 
 But he added: “We cannot support our friends and defeat our enemies in the Middle East when our words are not backed up by deeds.” 
 
 The address mostly repackaged things Romney has said before, sometimes with greater precision. The Republican offered few specific ways he would change the Obama administration’s current approach. 
 
 Although he made broad critiques of Obama’s “passivity,” Romney did not call for any new armed intervention in any Mideast conflict. 
 
 “I believe that if America does not lead, others will,” Romney said, “others who do not share our interests and our values.” 
 
 Romney did say Obama failed reformist protesters in Iran in 2009, and is failing the anti-Assad forces in Syria now. The United States is “sitting on the sidelines,” instead of working with other nations to arm Syrian rebels, Romney said. 
 
 Much of Romney’s address focused on the complex threat posed by Iran, but he did not propose specific solutions that differ from the Obama administration’s current policy of tightening sanctions and insisting that an Iranian nuclear bomb is intolerable. 
 
 Romney did not say whether he would continue the current international diplomatic effort to persuade Iran to back off the most worrisome elements of its nuclear program. Iran claims the program is aimed only at peaceful nuclear energy and medical uses. 
 
 Romney, speaking in confident and crisp tones before an audience of more than 400 cadets and invited guests at Virginia Military Institute, said it is Obama’s “responsibility to use America’s great power to shape history—not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.” 
 
 Romney did not call for a new “red line” on Iran as Israel has said it wants, and he did not specifically say he would be open, in the future, to a U.S. attack on Iran to stop them from acquiring “nuclear capability” so Israel doesn’t have to do it now. He did not mention the crippling effect sanctions are having now, and he didn’t call for regime change in Iran. 
 
 The speech at VMI thrust foreign policy further into the center of a campaign that until recently had been almost entirely about the economy. The focus is expected to intensify as the two candidates debate foreign policy during their last one-on-one encounter, on Oct. 22. 
 
 Romney said he would support Israel, the nation presumably most at risk if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, and charged that Obama’s poor relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has help embolden Iran and other adversaries. 
 
 “I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel and our abiding commitment to its security,” Romney said. “The world must never see any daylight between our two nations.” 
 
 That was a reference to a remark Obama reportedly made to “put some daylight” between the United States and Israel early in his administration. Obama has since pledged many times to support Israel and his administration claims ties between the two nations have never been stronger. 
 
 Romney said he would bulk up the U.S. naval presence around Iran, something the Obama administration has done occasionally on an ad hoc basis. He said he would add to the Navy’s fleet, but did not say how he would pay for it. 
 
 Romney also promised new conditions on foreign aid, including to Egypt. 
 
 “I will make it clear to the recipients of our aid that in return for our material support, they must meet the responsibilities of every decent modern government,” Romney said. 
 
 He said Obama has “no trade agenda to speak of,” and has signed no new bilateral trade deals. That is technically true, since the deals he signed with South Korea, Panama and Colombia were begun under Republican President George W. Bush. 
 
 Free trade deals are often politically unpopular among key Democratic constituencies such as labor groups. Although Obama had used mild anti-free-trade rhetoric during the 2008 campaign, he has pointed to those three deals and another in the works with Asia as accomplishments. 
 
 Romney said Obama had failed to secure a deal to keep some troops in Iraq, and promised that he would manage the coming U.S. exit from Afghanistan with national security, not politics, as his guide. 
 
 The Obama campaign quickly criticized the speech as a patchwork of overheated rhetoric and outdated ideas. 
 
 “I just find him very shallow,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said in a conference call arranged by the Obama campaign. Romney’s views on Russia, for example, seem rooted in the last century and infirmed by the most conservative of his circle of foreign policy advisers, Albright said. 
 
 “I’m beginning to think that Governor Romney just doesn’t have the facts,” Albright said. 
 
 Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the address Romney’s seventh attempt to reboot his foreign policy vision. 
 
 “This is somebody who leads with chest-pounding rhetoric. He’s inexperienced. He’s been clumsy of his handling of foreign policy,” Psaki said. 
 
 Romney spoke in a small auditorium at the military school, behind a U.S. flag and several military flags. A group of several hundred white-uniformed cadets filled the seats, mixing with a few dozen invited guests. Patriotic and military music played in the background. 
 
 Romney stuck to his prepared text and did not ad lib. 
 
 The former CEO and Massachusetts governor, in his comfort zone when focused on the economy, has stumbled during his occasional forays into foreign policy. 
 
 It has been the unscripted or hurried moments that have caused Romney, who has little foreign policy experience, the most trouble. 
 
 Even many Republicans were critical after Romney slammed Obama’s handling of the attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya, even as the events were unfolding. The Sept. 11 assault in Libya killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. 
 
 Romney has mounted a sustained attack on Obama’s leadership ever since, as questions have mounted over the administration’s shifting explanations of the attack and whether the U.S. post was properly secured. 
 
 He offended his British hosts and Palestinian leaders during an overseas trip in July, failed to mention Afghanistan in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, and was roundly criticized for the timing of his assault on Obama’s handling of violence in Libya. 
 
 With increasing questions about the Obama administration’s handling of the violence in Libya that killed four Americans — and with Romney gaining momentum from his widely praised performance in last week’s first debate — some experts think the speech is well-timed. 
 
 Though Obama has consistently outpolled Romney on foreign affairs, that advantage has diminished. A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted just before the first debate showed Obama with a five-point edge in who is more trusted to handle international concerns, down from the president’s double-digit advantage earlier in the year. 
 
 “It’s understandable why he’s doing it now,” said David Rothkopf, a former senior Clinton administration official who is chief executive of Foreign Policy magazine. “The administration, which two to three months ago seemed unassailable on foreign policy and national security issues, now looks much more vulnerable because of what happened in Libya, because the entire Middle East is a mess, because of tensions between Obama and Netanyahu.” 
 
 In a series of speeches that began during the Republican primary campaign, Romney has proposed a more confrontational approach to China, Russia and other countries, and he accused Obama of failing to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, offending Israel, and jeopardizing the U.S. military with budget cuts that Republican congressional leaders have supported. 
 
 Advised by veterans of the Reagan and both Bush administrations, Romney has also used blunt, sometimes swaggering language on the stump that has at times evoked the Cold War, including his pledge to “devote myself to an American century.” 
 
 But Romney’s description of Russia as America’s “number one geopolitical foe” has drawn criticism, and his overseas trip in July, intended to showcase Romney as a world leader and potential commander in chief, was widely seen as plagued by missteps. Romney, in an interview, questioned Britain’s readiness for the Olympic Games it was about to host, drawing rebukes from British leaders and a tabloid headline labeling him “Mitt the Twit.’’ 
 
 He then angered Palestinian leaders by suggesting that the Israeli economy has outpaced that of the Palestinian territories in part because of advantages of “culture,’’ while also vastly misstating the difference in gross domestic product between Israel and Palestinian areas. Romney advisers argued at the time that the trip had been successful, pointing out the candidate’s generally positive reception in Israel and an endorsement from former Polish president and pro-democracy icon Lech Walesa. 
 
 The Obama campaign, citing foreign policy achievements including the killing of Osama bin Laden and the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, is undeterred. Campaign officials have accused Romney of flip-flopping on the U.S. mission in Libya and troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, and have pointed out that the lack of new policy prescriptions. They also say most people don’t vote based on foreign policy, though it may be seen more broadly as part of a leadership test. 
 
 The Obama campaign released a television ad Monday that blasted Romney’s foreign policy credentials and said his “gaffe-filled” European tour in July showed his “reckless” and “amateurish” approach to international issues. 
 
 Gearan reported from Washington. Jon Cohen in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| Over the past few days, he has stuck largely to accusations that Mr. Obama has “apologized” for America and projected weakness, suggesting that was the root cause of this week’s protests in Cairo and the lethal violence in Libya. 
 
 Even on Thursday, as the turmoil in Egypt and Libya seemed to bleed into other areas of the region, Mr. Romney largely chose to bypass discussion of the challenges in dealing with the two countries, instead offering a more general critique of the president. “As we watch the world today, sometimes it seems that we’re at the mercy of events, instead of shaping events, and a strong America is essential to shape events,” Mr. Romney said, speaking to a modest-size crowd in Fairfax, Va., just outside Washington. 
 
 And in an interview with ABC News, Mr. Romney declined to respond to Mr. Obama’s charge that he has a tendency to shoot first and aim later. “Well, this is politics,” he said. “I’m not going to worry about the campaign.” 
 
 Video 
 
 The sharpest foreign policy difference, described by Mr. Cohen, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a former senior official in the State Department under President George W. Bush, came in response to questions about how Mr. Romney would handle Iran. 
 
 President Obama has said he would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but has so far refused calls from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to set a “red line” sooner, one that would put Iran on notice that it would be subject to military attack if it continued to develop the capability to build such a weapon. Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu continued that debate in an hourlong phone call on Tuesday night, hours after the Israeli leader suggested the United States had no “moral authority” to restrain Israel from attacking Iran if it was unwilling to set clear limits for the Iranians. 
 
 Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Romney “would not be content with an Iran one screwdriver’s turn away from a nuclear weapon.” But he stopped short of saying exactly where, in the development of nuclear capability, Mr. Romney would draw the line. It could be in a different place than Mr. Netanyahu draws it, he said. 
 
 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. 
 
 That vagueness is crucial because by some definitions, Iran already has the capability to produce a nuclear weapon, though it might take several months or years to realize. 
 
 “Once they get a weapon, or on the verge of getting it, it’s too late,” Mr. Cohen said. 
 
 Mr. Romney has said he would never allow Iran to enrich uranium, suggesting he would enforce a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran “suspend” its production of all nuclear fuel. But Iran was in violation of that demand through most of Mr. Bush’s second term, and suffered fewer economic consequences than it has under Mr. Obama, who has imposed the first sanctions against Iran’s oil revenues. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Both Mr. Cohen and Mr. Williamson said the president had been far too cautious in supporting opposition forces in Syria, describing him as too risk-averse in the Middle East. “It’s playing out in Syria,” said Mr. Williamson, a former ambassador who has served a series of Republican presidents. “We are not better off in letting things drift. We have 20,000 dead, and the more it goes on the fewer choices we have.” 
 
 Mr. Cohen suggested that the only way to separate out “the good guys and the bad guys among the opposition” was to engage them. “If we don’t help, these guys they will turn to whoever can help.” 
 
 But both men stopped short of saying that the United States should provide lethal arms. A senior Obama administration official said that “sounds a lot like they are endorsing our position.” 
 
 On Egypt, Mr. Cohen suggested that the administration had failed to make clear that American aid was contingent on the protection of American interests. In fact, Mr. Obama’s aides, in trips to Cairo, have been careful not to threaten pulling that aid, but they have warned the Egyptian authorities that Congressional approval could be enormously difficult unless the country’s leaders reaffirmed the peace treaty with Israel. 
 
 Mr. Williamson continued the Romney campaign’s attack on a statement issued by the American Embassy in Cairo hours before protests began there, saying “you don’t issue a conciliatory statement that says we don’t support freedom of speech.” The statement did condemn a virulent anti-Muslim video that set off the violence, but it also included references to both the importance of free speech and religious tolerance. ||||| It sounded weeks ago like a mismatch. 
 
 The final presidential debate would focus on foreign policy — a sitting president who’d overseen the death of Osama bin Laden pitted against a one-term governor, so new to diplomatic thinking that he’d managed to offend a good chunk of Britain during a brief trip this summer. 
 
 Monday night’s debate doesn’t look like a mismatch anymore. 
 
 Instead, when President Obama meets Republican challenger Mitt Romney in Boca Raton, Fla., he will face an opponent who has already made up tremendous ground on the subject by criticizing Obama as weak, waffling and distracted by his reelection goals. 
 
 Before the two men first debated on Oct. 3, Obama held a 15-point lead over Romney on the question of who is more capable of managing foreign affairs. After Obama’s listless performance, a Pew Research Center poll found that the gap had narrowed to a slender four points. 
 
 View Graphic Explore the 2012 electoral map and view historical results and demographics 
 
 On Monday, the two candidates will share a stage for the last time. The race could not be closer: On Sunday, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found the candidates tied, each with 47 percent of likely voters. Before the debates began, Obama led the same poll by three points. 
 
 In this debate, Obama could face the opposite of the situation many envisioned weeks before. Instead of lending him credibility, his commander-in-chief role could make him more vulnerable, opening Obama to questions about a range of unresolved crises. 
 
 Romney is likely to renew criticism of the Obama administration’s reaction to a Sept. 11 attack that killed four Americans at a mission in Benghazi, Libya. And Obama also is likely to face questions about the civil war in Syria, a recent assassination in Lebanon and possible signals that Iran may be willing to bargain over the future of its nuclear program. 
 
 The White House on Saturday denied a New York Times report that said the United States and Iran had agreed in principle to hold one-on-one talks about that program. The report said Iran wanted to wait until after the election for talks to begin. 
 
 “It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a written statement. The Reuters news service reported that Iran also had denied the report. 
 
 Libya’s political risks 
 
 Foreign policy questions played a significant role in the last presidential debate, held last Tuesday on Long Island. Romney was caught flat-footed with an overly broad statement that Obama had taken two weeks to label the attack in Benghazi an “act of terror.” 
 
 Romney was corrected by moderator Candy Crowley: Although Obama did not directly call the attack terrorism the next day, he did say that the United States will not retreat from “acts of terror.” 
 
 Since then, Romney has said little about Libya on the campaign trail. Advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal campaign thinking, said Romney has deliberately turned his focus away from Libya and toward the domestic economy and gas prices since the last debate. 
 
 His arguments on those issues had polled well among debate viewers last week, the advisers said. But Libya is almost certain to come up again Monday night. 
 
 Romney’s advisers have said data they have collected from focus groups in the swing-state of Ohio suggest that voters, especially women, think Obama is hiding something on Libya. 
 
 Romney’s allies are making that point already, raising questions about the administration’s shifting explanations of the Benghazi attack and the failure to offer greater security for American workers there. 
 
 In an Internet ad released last week, the super PAC American Crossroads used the classic language of a Washington scandal: “What did the president know and when did he know it?” 
 
 Obama seems to have prepared more for the question, which he essentially dodged in the last debate. He may have previewed his answer Thursday on “The Daily Show.” 
 
 “We weren’t confused about the fact that four Americans had been killed,” Obama said. “I wasn’t confused about the fact that we needed to ramp up diplomatic security around the world right after it happened. I wasn’t confused about the fact that we had to investigate exactly what happened so it gets fixed. And I wasn’t confused about the fact that we’re going to hunt down whoever did it .” 
 
 Obama may also try again to portray Romney as politically calculating for using the fatal attack to score points. He may also seek to make the case that Romney is unschooled in the sophisticated intelligence provided to presidents or the heavy decisions expected of them. 
 
 Senate Democrats picked up that theme over the weekend, criticizing the release by House Republicans of security details about U.S. diplomatic operations in Libya. 
 
 On Sunday, Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) accused Republicans of “obvious attempts to make political hay out of this tragedy,” and said the release of the names of Libyans who worked with Americans could jeopardize their lives and damage U.S. interests. 
 
 Beyond Libya, each candidate has articulated a very different role for America in the world, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that defined the U.S. presence overseas for a decade are either finished or fading fast. 
 
 The challenge for Obama and Romney will be to explain their foreign policy priorities in ways that resonate with voters preoccupied with economic issues and a growing national debt that undermines the country’s ability to act abroad. 
 
 Targeting China 
 
 China heads the list of issues that straddle foreign and domestic concerns, and both candidates are likely to steer discussion of the country’s rising economic influence to the American economy. 
 
 Last week, Romney called China a “cheater” and said that on the first day of his administration he would brand China a “currency manipulator.” That is a mostly symbolic snub, but one with possible trade repercussions. 
 
 Romney said the designation would “allow me as president to be able to put in place, if necessary, tariffs where I believe that they are taking unfair advantage of our manufacturers.” 
 
 Obama and Romney have tried to score domestic political points with tough talk on China — mostly relating to lost American jobs — that skims over the complexities of the nations’ intertwined economic relationship. 
 
 Obama claimed last week that he has put “unprecedented trade pressure on China,” although he has stopped short of the steps taken by the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who did designate China a currency manipulator. 
 
 China denies it manipulates its currency for a trade advantage, although China’s central bank nudged the yuan higher against the dollar following last week’s debate. 
 
 Too much criticism could sour the delicate political relationship with China just as that country chooses a new 10-year leader, and risks reducing U.S. leverage to win Chinese support on the U.N. Security Council for tough sanctions against Iran and other policy priorities. 
 
 “The presidential campaign reflects an alarming scenario in which China-bashing has become a ritual,” China’s state-run news service, Xinhua, said Wednesday. 
 
 Both candidates are also likely to address Europe’s debt crisis, a drag on the already precarious U.S. economic recovery. Europe’s economic malaise is increasingly seen as a U.S. national security problem, and one Obama tried to blunt earlier this year with intensive negotiations with the continent’s leaders. 
 
 Looking beyond the American economy, debate moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News may ask Romney about his contention earlier this year that Russia is the United States’ “No. 1 geopolitical foe.” 
 
 The comment was viewed by many as a Cold War relic, and Russia bristled at Romney’s pledge that if elected he would beef up a missile defense shield in Europe. 
 
 The U.S. relationship with Russia has improved in tone if not in substance under Obama, but it remains a wary partnership at best. 
 
 On Syria, Obama is likely to denounce President Bashar al-Assad, who still counts on Russian support, but pledge no new U.S. help to oust him. 
 
 Romney has said Obama has been too timid in dealing with Assad, while being too hard on Israel next door when it comes to talking peace with the Palestinians. And Romney has endorsed arming the Syrian rebels. 
 
 “In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets,” Romney said in a foreign policy address earlier this month at the Virginia Military Institute. 
 
 Obama has declined to take that step, arguing that heavier weapons could inflame a civil war already spilling past its borders and end up in the hands of rebels the United States knows little about. The United States is providing communications gear and other logistical and humanitarian help, short of “lethal aid.” 
 
 Similar tacks on Iran 
 
 Romney’s policy on Iran appears very similar to Obama’s in substance. Romney has criticized Obama for failing to curtail Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, but he has favored the same set of international sanctions that Obama has secured. 
 
 Obama and Romney say Iran must not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, something Iran’s leadership denies pursuing. But Romney has aligned himself more closely with Israel’s shorter timeline for acting against it, saying he would deny Iran the “capability” of developing a nuclear weapon. 
 
 During an address last month at the U.N. General Assembly, Obama repeated his view that there is still time to negotiate with Iran. But he has not endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appeal for a global “red line” for military intervention. 
 
 Former Pentagon undersecretary Michele Flournoy, an Obama campaign adviser, said the debate is an opportunity for Obama to showcase national security experience Romney does not have. 
 
 “We’ve seen that Romney does not hesitate to look for opportunities to use crises like Libya for political gain,” Flournoy said. 
 
 Obama can also point out that Romney has offered few policy prescriptions that differ from Obama’s, she said. 
 
 Romney has suggested that he might relax Obama’s strict timeline for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in 2014, after 13 years of war, but has said little about how he would deal differently with Afghan leaders, the Taliban or neighbor Pakistan. 
 
 Philip Rucker contributed to this report.
– Mitt Romney's aides are using the crisis in the Middle East as a backdrop to flesh out their candidate's foreign policy, and it's a hawkish one, the New York Times reports. Aides said that if Mitt Romney had been president over the past four years… The US would have been actively involved in helping to form Libya's post-revolution government. He'd have set down the kind of "red line" against Iran that Israel is looking for, using military action if Iran crossed a certain point in nuclear development. They said Romney wouldn't have allowed Iran to enrich uranium, though the Times points out that it was doing that during much of George W. Bush's second term. The US would be "facilitating" the flow of arms to Syrian rebels, though not directly arming them. One Obama aide quips that it "sounds a lot like they are endorsing our position." All the positions are much more detailed than anything Romney himself has said on the campaign trail. The aides also attacked President Obama over the Libya crisis in especially harsh terms. "There is a pretty compelling store that if you had a President Romney, you'd be in a different situation," one adviser told the Washington Post. "For the first time since Jimmy Carter, we've had an American ambassador assassinated. … The respect for America has gone down, there's not a sense of American resolve."