Rick Santorum: Obama Doesn't Believe in Freedom

Santorum casts himself as natl security candidate.

ByABC News
April 28, 2011, 4:07 PM

April 28, 2011 -- With Donald Trump and Ron Paul grabbing national headlines for their fledgling presidential campaigns, it is difficult for any candidate – much less a former Senator from Pennsylvania – to distinguish himself in the field.

Potential 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum used a multi-faceted foreign policy address today to cast himself as the national security candidate.

Santorum criticized Obama's foreign policy around the world, calling Libya a "morass" and attacking the President's handling of the recent uprisings in Egypt and Syria. He said America's outlook on international intervention should rely more on national security than President Obama's.

"Freedom has been our watchword, our anchor and our moral guide for nearly every cause both here and abroad. But today, we have lost this mission because our president doesn't believe in it," Santorum said.

As a prime example of this failure, Santorum cited America's involvement in Libya.

"As for Libya: it is a morass. If we were going to support the rebel forces we should have acted swiftly in the early days of Benghazi's uprising by recognizing and arming the rebels and immediately enforcing a no-fly zone. Decisive action against Gadhafi would have been the end of him."

Unlike other potential 2012 contenders like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney who have both termed American's involvement in Libya a "mission creep," Santorum said he believes that America has done too little, too late.

An ABC News / Washington Post Poll released last week found 40 percent of Americans oppose U.S. military involvement in Libya, and 65 percent disapprove of President Obama's handling of the situation.

"[Obama] delayed any comment for several days, then announced his support for expelling Kaddafi. He then dithered by doing nothing to effectuate that policy and ultimately deferred to the Arab League, the French, and the UN, but with the proviso that our policy was now different, not to overthrow Kaddafi. And in the meantime, because we have abdicated our leadership, NATO has been put in a state of disarray," Santorum said.

In his speech at the National Press Club, titled "Americans and the World," Santorum criticized U.S. policy from Syria, to Venezuela, to Egypt and Iran. His overarching message was that America is "truly a moral enterprise" but that Obama has forgotten this imperative.

"Syria's continued destabilizing of Lebanon, open hostility to Israel and support for terrorism has been rewarded by President Obama," Santorum said. He said the U.S. should not have an ambassador in Syria and the protesters there deserve American support.

In Egypt, Santorum argued that the United States turned its back on its longtime ally, Hosni Mubarak, only to create a power vacuum filled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Turning to Iran, he said Obama's policies largely caused rebel uprisings to fail.

Santorum labeled "militant socialism" and "Sharia and its violent iteration jihadism" as the main two threats to the world. He called on America to "[reclaim] our legacy of liberty."