Romney: Obama's foreign policy 'lacks resolve'

Mitt Romney is keeping up his criticism of President Obama's foreign policy, charging today that his rival's actions have allowed American leadership to "atrophy" particularly in the Middle East.

Romney's comments come in an op-ed column today in The Wall Street Journal, and foreshadow what his team is signalling will be a major foreign policy address. Gallup and other public opinion polls show Obama has an edge over Romney in dealing with foreign affairs -- a traditional advantage for incumbents.

"By failing to maintain the elements of our influence and by stepping away from our allies, President Obama has heightened the prospect of conflict and instability," Romney writes. "He does not understand that an American policy that lacks resolve can provoke aggression and encourage disorder."

The GOP presidential nominee's op-ed is a more robust version of what Romney has been saying on the campaign trail in recent days, in which he has slammed Obama's comment about "bumps in the road."

White House spokesman Jay Carney has said that Obama was referring to unrest in the Middle East in general, and not specifically to the deadly violence in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan signaled on Fox News Sunday that Romney will give a major foreign policy address soon to push back on Obama's response to Iran's nuclear weapons development, the rebellion in Syria, and his handling of the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Romney will "lay out a very different vision for foreign policy, one that is a policy of American strength versus what I would articulate or claim the president's policy is one of weakness," Ryan said yesterday on Fox News.