Mitt Romney, who appears set to secure nomination as the Republican to challenge Democrat Barack Obama in November’s presidential elections, is clearly a believer in the hawkish, unilateral interventionism of the George W. Bush administration. And that means a return of the neoconservative-led war camp in Washington.

Romney’s choice of advisers suggests this. And throughout his statements during the campaign trail thus far, he rarely mentioned Bush but sounded like the former president when it came to foreign policy.

Writing on thenation.com, Ari Berman notes that among Romney’s 40 identified foreign policy advisers, more than 70 per cent worked for Bush, many of them coming from the neoconservative wing of the party who backed the Iraq war and are proponents of a US or Israeli attack on Iran.

Berman quotes Christopher Preble, a foreign policy expert at the Cato Institute, as saying that “Romney’s likely to be in the mould of Bush when it comes to foreign policy if he were elected.”

Romney’s closeness to the neoconservative camp — even if it is for political purposes — could turn into a policy nightmare if he becomes president, Berman notes.

Romney has gone on record that if elected he would not hesitate to launch a war against Iran. He has also pledged to closely align Washington with the Israeli right. He will leave troops in Afghanistan at least until 2014 and refuse to negotiate with the Taliban.

The Washington Monthly has called Romney’s foreign policy vision the “more enemies, fewer friends” doctrine. The argument is strengthened by suggestions that Romney, if elected, could appoint John Bolton, one of the hardest hardliners and warmongers in the Bush administration, as secretary of state.

Critics call Bolton an opponent of international organisations and conventions.

He is one of eight Romney advisers who signed letters drafted by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative advocacy group, urging the Clinton and Bush administrations to attack Iraq.

Shortly before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he told Israeli officials that Syria, Iran and North Korea would be the next US targets. Bolton is an outspoken proponent of an Israeli attack on Iran.

If Bolton is not enough, then pitch in people like PNAC founding members Paula Dobriansky and Eliot Cohen, counsellor to secretary of state Condoleezza Rice from 2007 to 2009. Cohen is an ardent advocate of regime change in Tehran.

We don’t know what fate awaits Romney in his bid for the presidency. The odds are in favour of the incumbent. But we do know that the world would not be a better place to live in if he wins and becomes the most powerful man on the planet.