G.O.P. 2012 round-up: Newt on the attack; Romney heading to London; and Santorum and Beck discuss the Middle East

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich attacked President Barack Obama’s assertion in his June 22 speech announcing the troop drawdown in Afghanistan that the “tide of war is receding.” He said the country is facing a “tsunami of violence building offshore,” according to Politico.

“I want to challenge the president to withdraw the phrase because it totally misleads the American people, and presents a delusional version of the world,” he said at a Maryland Republican Party dinner in Baltimore.

Gingrich said the White House should have taken stronger action against Pakistan after it reportedly arrested CIA informants who helped the United States find Osama bin Laden.

“We should have taken extraordinary actions against Pakistanis — within 24 hours,” Gingrich told the crowd. “We should have said if you don’t release those people you can assume we have no relationship and we’ll chat with you from India.”

He also accused the president of “sleepwalking” through the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Romney to fundraise in London

One of Mitt Romney’s favorite knocks on Obama is that he is too European. In the words of the GOP frontrunner, the president takes “his inspiration not from the small towns and villages of New Hampshire but from the capitals of Europe.” So, it might strike some people as a little surprising that Romney is planning to travel to London next month — which, after all, is one of those “capitals of Europe” — to attend a fund-raiser, according to the Boston Globe. Very few presidential candidates have held fundraisers on foreign soil. Rudy Giuliani was the first in 2007 — also in London — and Obama held one in the London home of Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, Elizabeth, in 2008.

According to the Globe, suggested contributions for the July 6 party at Dartmouth House — “a building not far from Hyde Park that has marble fireplaces, Louis XIV walnut paneling, and a painted ceiling by Pierre Victor Galland” — is $2,500 a person.

Santorum and Beck discuss Israel

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show yesterday, and the pair discussed more than just kissing “on the mouth” — though they did discuss that too.

Israel — and specifically efforts to delegitimize Israel — came up. Santorum said the United States should not force Israel to take part in negotiations since the “Palestinian Authority [and] others in the Middle East refuse to accept Israel’s right to be there.”

“Do you think America has enough courage to turn the tide on Israel,” Beck asked the presidential candidate.”

“If we had a strong leader who had the respect of the world,” Santorum said. “We see now…a president backing away, who is an internationalist, someone who sees his role as almost transcending the presidency…and sees his role as to work with the international community to their ends. Not to the ends of the national security interest of our country. Not to the end of supporting allies who are strategic for us. But to the ends of some greater goal.”

Whenever the two get together, the Middle East seems to come up. In April, they agreed that there is a coalition of “Sunni, Shia, socialists, and Islamists and jihadists working together [to form] a caliphate,” Santorum said. Beck said the caliphate “begins with Turkey, Egypt and Iran.”