After Republican leaders rightly criticized Senator Obama, a former state legislator with merely two years in the U.S. Senate, for being unqualified to be commander-in-chief and leader of the free world during the 2008 campaign, it would be an irony if they selected Marco Rubio, a former state legislator with merely two years in the U.S. Senate, as vice president in the 2012 election.

Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie will almost certainly not be the vice presidential nominee for the simple reason that they don't want to be president. Both declined to run for the top job because, if rumors are to be believed, they were unwilling to undergo the rigors and personal scrutiny that a presidential campaign brings. If they were unwilling to do so for the presidency, why would they do so for the much lesser prize of the vice presidency?

Paul Ryan, meanwhile, is too valuable to the GOP in the House. As one of the more serious-minded legislators in the party, he would be wasted on the vice presidency.

Besides which, the vice presidential nominee almost never makes an actual difference in the election. The great myth is that the presidential nominee should pick a VP from a swing state in order to win more votes there. The problem is, that never happens. Perhaps once in American history has the VP delivered his state and swung an election: LBJ bringing Texas to give JFK the prize in 1960. That's it, just once.

So it comes down to this: Who is actually qualified to be president? That's the question Mitt Romney should be asking in selecting his running mate. That's the only criterion that should really matter. There are very few people in the country with a plausible claim to being qualified for the presidency. Unfortunately, Bob Gates has definitively retired, reducing the number of candidates by one.

That leaves David Petraeus. Petraeus served as commanding general of both wars the U.S. fought over the last decade, headed up central command, and is now director of the CIA. And, of course, he had the courage and professionalism to serve in a deeply unpopular war and, remarkably, come out with his reputation enhanced. Probably no person alive has a better grasp of the international situation, America's role in the world, and the limitations and capabilities of American power.

Petraeus has nearly universal name recognition and is one of the most well-respected figures in the country. A year ago only 11 percent of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of him, according to Gallup, half that of Christie. And as a non-partisan figure he has not been tarnished by the partisanship and mud-slinging of recent years. Additionally, Petraeus would bring foreign policy expertise to the ticket, balancing Romney's focus on economic issues. If Obama really intends to claim that his foreign policy accomplishments should earn voters' respect, there is no one in the country with more credibility than Petraeus to take Obama's argument apart.

He would bring gravitas and seriousness to a campaign season that, so far, has been more memorable for the parade of not serious GOP challengers who, thankfully, had the decency to drop out. His intelligence and ethic of public service would be a good match for Romney's own. I admit "Romney-Rubio" has a nice, almost poetic ring to it; it rolls off the tongue beautifully. "Romney-Petraeus" has too many syllables. It sounds like something out of a technical manual, or a nickname for a loophole in the tax code. On the other hand, they might actually govern competently, which counts for something.

Making foreign policy in a democracy is not easy. On top of the customary challenges of devising and implementing strategy in a complex international system, there are the additional factors of public opinion and the electoral cycle. These burdens vexed George Kennan so much that he came to disdain American democracy and despair of his country even being able to conduct an effective grand strategy. Similar frustrations sometimes beset contemporary commentators such as Tom Friedman, who express envy for China's autocracy and its apparent ease of decision-making.

But as Kennan failed to appreciate, democracy as a system also brings advantages to the making of foreign policy. These include the legitimacy of public opinion, the collective wisdom that can emanate from the body politic, the moral authority of democratic consent, the collective resources offered by participatory government, and the occasional brake on folly that public accountability can impose.

It is in this context that President Obama's recent open-mic embarrassment might be considered. When President Obama's own "oops" moment happened during his meeting with Russian President Medvedev in Seoul, the White House no doubt hoped that it would be nothing more than a one-day news story. Now that a couple of weeks have passed since Obama notoriously told the Russian leadership that he would have more "flexibility" once he was less accountable to the American electorate, the issue doesn't seem to be going away. Past hot-mic slips have been evanescent stories at best, but this one is likely to enter the annals of Obama administration foreign policy infelicities in the same file as "leading from behind," returning the Churchill bust to the UK, and showing the Dalai Lama the back door. The question is why?

In part this is because the White House itself is signaling its intention to make foreign policy a central part of its re-election campaign, which thus brings greater scrutiny on President Obama's foreign policy intentions during a second term. As a campaign tactic this focus is unsurprising, given the Obama administration's weak domestic and economic policy record. (The White House seems to realize this as well, hence the Obama re-election campaign's sheepishness about featuring past priority initiatives such as Obamacare or the failed stimulus package). But there are several other reasons why the "flexibility" remark won't soon be forgotten:

• It recalls one of Obama's first strategic mistakes. His 2009 decision to back away from commitments to American allies Poland and the Czech Republic while capitulating to Russian demands on ballistic missile defense secured very little in return from Moscow, especially in Russian willingness to pressure Iran on its nuclear program.

• It highlights another past miscalculation. In asking Medvedev to pass the "flexibility" message on to President-"elect" Putin, Obama inadvertently highlighted the administration's early failed efforts to boost Medvedev as the Russian leader while downplaying Putin's ongoing repression and consolidation of power.

• It raises more questions. What other types of comments or commitments has President Obama made to foreign leaders that hot microphones didn't pick up? One hopes that the "flexibility" plea is an aberration, and that this president does not see the American people as an obstacle to his foreign policy goals. The Republican presidential nominee will likely be asking this question often for the next several months. [Unsurprising disclosure: I am a supporter of Gov. Romney's presidential campaign].

• It compares unfavorably with Obama's predecessor. For all of the criticism directed at President George W. Bush during his time in office, foreign leaders and the American people always knew where he stood and did not worry that his public talk conflicted with his private messages. This contrast only further complicates the Obama administration's efforts to blame Bush for their challenges while simultaneously benefiting from his policies. Notwithstanding the cheap shots at Bush by some recent Obama administration officials, the White House continues to follow many Bush national security policies. The White House's continuation of the Bush administration counterterrorism framework and Asia-Pacific strategic alignments has been detailed at length elsewhere. Now the current benefits of bolstered intelligence collection on Iran that Bush launched can be added to the ledger.

• It reinforces an impression of disregard for many of the American people. Perhaps most irksome about the "flexibility" comment was its implication that President Obama sees the American public as a hindrance. But this is not the first time that he has been caught by a hot microphone disparaging his fellow citizens. Recall, for example, his 2008 comments that some Americans "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion."

• It exacerbates concern among American allies and partners about the Obama administration's reliability. Ironically, for all of this White House's campaign rhetoric about improving America's image and "repairing" relations with our allies, the reality is that under Obama our relations with most of our allies and partners on virtually every continent have actually worsened -- yes, worsened -- since the end of the Bush administration. The recent summit with Canada and Mexico barely covered over Canada's acute frustration with Obama for canceling the northern half of Keystone XL and apparently blocking their Trans-Pacific Partnership participation, or Mexico's anger over the thousands of guns flooding their country from the botched "Fast and Furious" operation. In Europe, the neglect felt by Britain and France is now compounded by their worries that the administration will look for an election-year off-ramp from stopping Iran's nuclear program, not to mention doubts about the White House's commitment to ending Assad's rule in Syria. Japan and Australia find the administration's abrupt changes of course in their region disconcerting, and Taiwan questions the White House's commitment to its security. India wonders whether the administration will leave its region even more unstable by focusing on leaving rather than winning in Afghanistan, and also wonders whether President Obama genuinely sees it as a strategic partner. Iraq and Afghanistan represent two cases where the Obama administration has presided over the deterioration in the complex yet functional bilateral relationships it inherited in January 2009. Obama's fraught relationship with Israel speaks for itself. And of course, Central and Eastern Europeans worry that Obama's appeal to the Russians for "flexibility" will come at the expense of America's commitment to their security.

Given how many times Newt Gingrich rose from the proverbial electoral grave to become campaign-relevant again, I will not join the chorus claiming the fight for the Republican nomination is over. However, I will endorse another cliché: the primary season is at an important turning point, or at least it should be. It is high time the candidates focused on providing a compelling alternative to President Obama rather than providing a litany of reasons for detesting the other Republicans in the race.

The urgency is especially acute in foreign policy and national security. I have been fretting about this for some time now and I concede that the worst of my fears have not been realized; there won't be a crack-up within the party over foreign policy. Moreover, I endorse the conventional wisdom that the election will be won or lost on domestic policy and the economy.

However, that is no reason to settle for sloppy critiques and platforms in the area of foreign policy. Republicans must come to terms with the fact that this will be the strongest Democrat incumbent on national security and foreign policy they have faced in decades. This has more than a whiff of damnation with faint praise, since both President Clinton and especially President Carter were hobbled with substantial national security baggage during their reelection campaign. But for precisely that reason, I think Republicans have sometimes settled for an intellectually lazy critique because, given how weak the opposing party's record is, that seems to have sufficed.

Not this time. Obama has serious national security weaknesses and a record that warrants critique, but it is immune to superficial sound bite attacks. Soft on protecting America? The SEALs bought Obama immunity on that one when they took down Bin Laden. Naïve about the Iranian threat? Candidate Obama was demonstrably naïve about Iran and governed that way for the first half of his term, but since then has talked tough and marshaled strong sanctions.

Even issues where he has made bigger mistakes, like the failure to secure an agreement for stay-behind forces in Iraq, he may not be as politically vulnerable because they have been popular mistakes. The Iraq case illustrates my larger point well. Obama's hands-off approach to Iraq merits criticism (and I have supplied some here, here, and here, but it is hard to present the argument in a fashion that is brief enough to engage but fair enough to withstand administration rebuttals). Thus, Obama may have been hands-off personally, but the administration was not; Vice-President Biden devoted considerable time to the Iraq file, and with Ambassador Crocker on the ground, the administration had a good team in place. Moreover, the lion's share of the blame for the failure rests with the Iraqi leadership. I think reasonable people can question the way Obama handled the Iraq file, but it requires a nuanced line to explain how the administration missed the mark. Offer a sloppy critique, and the administration and its allies in the media swat it down with "But Bush negotiated the withdrawal agreement" -- and all too often the discussion ends there.

The Obama team's rare invocation of a Bush policy in the defense suggests two fruitful lines of contrast that the Republican nominee should develop:

1. Obama's foreign policy successes have come when he has followed Bush policies; his failures have come when he has struck out on his own. I have made this point before, but it bears reemphasis. Republicans need not fear giving Obama credit for his successes because to a remarkable extent they have come where he has governed like a Republican not like candidate Obama.

2. Obama has made relatively effective use of the tools and instruments of power that he inherited from his predecessor -- it raises the question, what new tools and instruments of power is Obama bequeathing to his successor? The SOF capabilities that produced the successful hunt for Bin Laden were honed on his predecessor's watch, especially by General McChrystal in Iraq. Likewise with tactics, techniques, and procedures associated with drone strikes. The financial levers that are squeezing Iran today were perfected by the Bush team. The key elements of Obama's Asia strategy -- the ones that have the best chance of yielding positive results -- were built under Bush and expanded under Obama. (Of course, in each of these areas, the Bush team took capabilities that were at an even more embryonic stage under Clinton's watch, so there is plenty of credit to be shared on both sides of the aisle. By the way, this is precisely how things transpired during the first Cold War, as the history of key programs like stealth technology demonstrate.) In some of these cases, Obama wisely kept many of the same architects who did the innovative work under Bush and expanded their influence and authority. So, the Republican nominee should ask, in what ways will Obama's successor have a larger and more powerful toolbox than the one Obama got to use?

Framing Obama's national security successes this way cuts sharply against the triumphalism that characterizes the White House communications operation. And, as the saying goes, it has the additional virtue of being true.

Republicans do not need to fear an accurate and fair evaluation of the record. But they will have to do the hard work of supplying it. Careless sound bites won't cut it this time around.

Update: When I said Ryan Crocker above of course I meant James Jeffrey. Crocker was an able Ambassador to Iraq under Bush and is now an able Ambassador to Afghanistan. James Jeffrey replaced Chris Hill in 2010 and, by all accounts, has worked assiduously to advance U.S. interests in Iraq.

Fareed Zakaria's interview with President Obama on Obama's foreign policy is a missed opportunity. Zakaria enjoyed exceptional access to President Obama, but chose to present the gauzy survey that the White House communications office might have served up (perhaps those two facts are linked?). Zakaria is certainly smart and knowledgeable enough to probe more deeply, but he didn't, or if he did, he didn't include it in the interview, and those deeper insights didn't make it into his own summary analysis of the interview either.

That is a pity, because I think Zakaria is a better critic of American foreign policy than he showed this time.  Here are just a few questions that a more trenchant interview might have pressed the president on:

• You campaigned on the claim that climate change was a national security threat of the highest rank, as important a national security interest as dealing with the threats posed by terrorists and WMD proliferation.  Yet, you have not governed that way. Yes, Congress opposed your cap-and-trade program, but they also didn't want Obamacare yet you rammed that through. Why couldn't you accomplish your grand strategy shift on climate change?
• You campaigned on an unrelenting critique of your predecessor's policies, yet you have kept so many of them in place. Moreover, where you have enjoyed the greatest success, say the killing of Bin Laden, it is through following techniques, tactics, and procedures developed by your predecessor. And where you have enjoyed the least success, say in Israel-Palestine, it has come after making abrupt changes. Do you think it is time now to refine your critique?
• Governor Romney has offered a fairly nuanced critique of your Iran policy, particularly focusing on missed opportunities during the post-election turmoil in June 2009 and then again with the September 2009 revelations of the secret uranium enrichment program.  Looking back on that year, do you agree with Romney that you missed some opportunities?
• Increasingly, our allies are expressing great discomfort with your heavy reliance on drone strikes. If you get a second term, do you think you will be obliged to scale back that program or brace yourself for significantly greater friction with our allies?
• What happened to your idea of a G-2, a condominium of global cooperative problem solving between the United States and China?
• You say you pride yourself on good personal relations with other leaders and that this has contributed to success in foreign policy. How extensive was your outreach to Prime Minister Maliki and how effective was that in negotiating the follow-on agreement that your administration was seeking?

You have launched the transpacific trade accord initiative, but you have done so after three years of letting ready-to-go trade agreements languish and after opposing the renewed grant of  fast track authority that all of your predecessors deemed essential for a credible trade promotion strategy. Why should our Asian partners view your proposal as a credible without it?

One could easily generate dozens more, and Zakaria could doubtless come up with a few that I haven't considered. The one time that he actually did press the president (albeit gently) on Simpson-Bowles, he elicited a bit more candor (and defensiveness) from his interview subject.

Perhaps it was the Oval Office effect. I know how the setting can intimidate even someone as self-assured and cosmopolitan as Zakaria. Perhaps, given my own turn at the mound, I would pitch softballs, too. But I would like to think that a seasoned pro would deliver a few fastballs, and maybe even a brush back pitch or two.

The Iowa results probably indicate that there will not be a big crack-up within the Republican party on foreign policy because the caucus returns are likely to be the high-water mark for the candidate with the most distinctive foreign policy platform in the field: Ron Paul. He did well enough to gain another week of press attention. But in the one contest best-suited to his unusual political operation, Paul did not beat expectations. He would have to really surprise in New Hampshire in order to remain relevant in the later primaries, and those are likely to be even tougher terrain for him. 

Paul is no longer likely to be a spoiler within the party. He can still play the spoiler in the general election, if he runs a Ross Perot-style third party campaign  and siphons off enough of the anti-incumbent vote to re-elect President Obama. There will be many Obama supporters cheering him on to do just that, but at least one influential Paul supporter argues compellingly against it.

Jon Huntsman is the other candidate who tried to capitalize on foreign policy divisions within the party, but he avoided Iowa altogether, thus delaying his moment of truth until next week's primary in New Hampshire. Predictions in this campaign season have been notoriously unreliable, but I am willing to bet that New Hampshire will be more of a Waterloo than a surge for Huntsman.

That means that Romney will very likely be the nominee, and whichever runners-up remain in the race to challenge him through a few more primaries will be doing so on the basis of domestic or economic policies or personality, not national security and foreign policy. Romney already had the strongest foreign policy platform of the field, and, if I am right about the fading of Paul and Huntsman, any remaining rivals -- even a surprise new not-Romney drafted from the bench -- will largely echo him on foreign policy.

There had always been a chance that the primaries would exacerbate the within-party divisions on national security, which are wider today than they have been since Reagan. A majority of Republican voters continue support the traditional "peace through strength" posture of muscular internationalism that characterized the tenures of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush (yes, there were differences across those administrations, but I would argue far more continuity than is popularly credited). A sizable minority shows more sympathy for steps ranging from retrenchment to neo-isolationism. Paul was the candidate that resonated most effectively with the latter group, but his positions were probably too extreme to serve as the foundation for a new Republican consensus. In any case, he would have to be considered a plausible candidate to win the nomination to further that debate, and I think that moment has passed.

There are still policy divisions: some Republicans think there should be essentially no cuts in defense spending, while others are willing to live with the first round of Obama cuts; some Republicans want more of a populist message on Chinese trade policy, while others want more of a traditional free trade posture; and so on.

But I think the big intra-party fight over foreign policy is over, if it ever really began.

Getting a shout-out on Drezner's blog can now be crossed off my bucket list. (What's next? Ed. After Dr...comes Du...Dunking in a basketball game.) The New York Times quoted me as worrying that Republican candidates were in danger of surrendering issue ownership on national security. Dan, a.k.a. the Maestro (but not that Maestro), wrote reassuringly that the Republicans were likely to nominate someone like Romney, who has shown himself to be fairly adept on foreign policy. I almost always agree with Dan, and when I don't I usually come to regret it, so let me state up front, I agree with him. But I still think it is worth reminding the Republican primary candidates to do their homework.

The general election may be decided on domestic policy and the economy, but it would be no bad thing if the Republican primary was decided on national security. By this I mean that Republicans should quickly jettison anyone who flunks the commander-in-chief test: can you trust this man or woman with the life and death decisions that land on the president's desk in the Oval Office? That is more important than whether the candidate signed this or that pledge, or whether the candidate compromised to get half-loaf policy decisions through a balky legislature. As disenchanted as the American electorate may be with President Obama, they are not going to vote for a Republican whom they believe cannot be trusted to fulfill the commander-in-chief duties responsibly.

This is good advice any year. It is especially true when the country is still at war. And it may be extra-especially true this year, which could be a man-bites-dog year in terms of the issue advantages of the parties. The Republicans are doing pretty well on all the issues, including many domestic issues where Democrats usually have the advantage. But when it comes to candidate-specific trust, this may be the first election in decades that the Democrats have a comparative advantage on national security, not the economy.

I say comparative advantage, because Republicans could well have an absolute advantage on both. But if I remember my Ricardo (this Ricardo, not that Ricardo), comparative advantage drives trade. Obama's 49-44 approval rating on foreign policy looks much better than his 30-67 approval rating on the economy and so he is likely to play up the former rather than the latter. Put it this way, do you think Obama's speechwriters will write more applause lines containing the words "health care reform" or "Osama Bin Laden"?

I have heard Republicans tell me that Obama won't be able to run on national security experience because no Republican candidate will be as inexperienced as candidate Obama was in 2008. I can think of a candidate or two who could give Obama of 2008 a run for his money on the inexperience contest, but that is the wrong way to think about the matter anyway. Republicans aren't running against Obama of 2008. They are running against Obama of 2012 and Obama of 2012 has had quite a lot of national security and foreign policy experience.

Not all of the experience is good, of course, but it is substantial nonetheless. And already, White House spinners are straight-facedly leveling the same not-ready-for-the-job critiques at Republicans that Hillary Clinton leveled at Obama four years ago.

So yes, Dan, if Republicans nominate Romney, I can rest easy about the Republican brand. But all of the candidates, including the eventual losers, could help matters by doing their part to reassure voters that Republicans have earned their trust in this vital area.