Romney takes measured tone on Iran, Libya

Mitt Romney expressed optimism Friday that Iran will drop its quest for nuclear weapons without a military strike by the United States or Israel, and suggested that he and President Obama are largely on the same page when it comes to Iran.

Lest that sound like an unusually conciliatory view for a political challenger, Romney did qualify his remarks about Obama, saying that the president has changed his views until they were more in line with the Republican nominee’s. Still, his comments represented a bit of a ratcheting down in tone after months of harsh words about the Iranian threat.

“I do not believe that in the final analysis we will have to use military action,” he said during an impromptu news conference on his campaign plane following a phone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I certainly hope we don’t have to. I can’t take that option off the table – it must be something which is known by the Iranians as a possible tool to be employed to prevent them from becoming nuclear. But I certainly hope that we can prevent any military action from having to be taken.”

While that is not inconsistent with Romney’s past statements, it places more emphasis on the likelihood of avoiding military action. In the past he has tended to stress his willingness to use force, as when he told CBS’ “Face the Nation” in June: “We must be willing to take any and all action.”

Romney’s conversation with Netanyahu came a short time after the prime minister spoke by phone with Obama. Romney declined to discuss the details of his talk with the Israeli leader, except to say that he praised Netanyahu’s speech to the United Nations on Thursday and that the two spoke about “the greatest national security threat that we face,” a nuclear-armed Iran. He said they also talked about “other developments in his neighborhood, Syria, Egypt and other neighbors.”

“I think his views were made very clear in his United Nations speech and we have -- very much have the same interest to make sure that Iran does not develop nuclear capability, which would threaten the existence of Israel, threaten devastation potentially in other nations in the world and we must make every effort to prevent them from developing that nuclear capability,” Romney said.

Romney and Netanyahu are longtime friends, having worked together as financial consultants for the Boston Consulting Group in the 1970s. Romney jokingly referred to that in a jibe at the cartoon image of a bomb that Netanyahu used as a prop in his U.N. speech.

“I suggested that his graphic was not up to the normal Boston Consulting Group standards,” Romney said, before adding: “No, I didn’t actually do that, but I was thinking that.”

By contrast, Netanyahu has had a fairly chilly relationship with Obama, although he praised the president in his U.N. speech. Romney has been sharply critical of Obama for failing to nurture a better relationship with Israel, and for failing to stand up to Iran. Obama has said the United States will not tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, but would prefer to use diplomacy, not military force, to achieve that goal. He has repeatedly said, however, that he would not rule out military action.

Asked how his views differ from Obama’s, Romney said: “Well, he’s moved over time. From the very beginning, I thought crippling sanctions needed to be put in place. Well, part is to see action as opposed to just words. His words more recently are more consistent with the words that I’ve been speaking for some time, and we’ll see what actions he pursues.”

He went on to repeat, as he has many times, that besides “crippling sanctions,” he believes that Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be indicted under the Geneva Conventions for inciting genocide against Israel.

“I would also look to take action against their diplomats and treat them like the pariah I think they are, the same way we treated South African diplomats under apartheid,” he said, again repeating a long-held position. “There would be extensive covert activity, but I’m not aware of the president’s and our administration’s covert actions to an extent to be able to define differences between the two of us in that regard. And of course I would be exploring military options in the event they were necessary, and again, what options the president has considered is something only he could describe.”

Romney was also more conciliatory than in the past when asked about Obama’s handling of the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. He has been critical of the administration for, among other things, being too slow to acknowledge that the attack appeared to be an act of terrorism.

Romney initially drew criticism himself for issuing a statement attacking Obama’s handling of unrest in Libya and Egypt even as the events were unfolding. On Friday, he seemed determined to strike a more measured tone.

“I think with the investigation ongoing it would be premature to describe precisely what the administration did correctly or incorrectly,” he said. “There are a wide array of reports about warnings and were they heeded – we’ll find out whether that was the case or that was not the case. I think it’s increasingly clear, if now not definitely pointed out, that this was a terrorist attack against our diplomats and there was not a spontaneous reaction to a film being shown, apparently on the Internet.

“There was a great deal of confusion about that from the very beginning on the part of the administration and whether that was something that they were trying to paper over or whether it was instead just confusion given the uncertain intelligence reports — time will tell.”

[For the record, Sept. 28, 3:55 p.m.: An earlier version of this post quoted Romney as saying in June, “We must be willing to take any and all action,” on “Meet the Press.” He spoke on “Face the Nation.”]

mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Landsberg reported from Los Angeles and Reston from Wayne, Pa.