In an attempt to display his statesmanship potential, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wades into deep foreign policy waters discussing Iraq, North Korea and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Speaking on his campaign bus in New Hampshire, the presidential hopeful spoke bluntly on foreign affairs saving his strongest words for Mr Putin whom he called "a real threat to the stability and peace of the world."

With Republican rival Newt Gingrich invoking former president and party idol Ronald Reagan in foreign policy debates, Mr Romney also referred to the Cold War spirit as he harked back to a time when the US defined itself by its opposition to the former-Soviet Union.

Mr Romney said that Mr Putin, who is seemingly set for a return to the office of Russian President in 2012, had "returned to some of the more heated rhetoric of the past", adding: "I think he endangers the stability and peacefulness of the globe."

The former governor of Massachusetts, a consistent frontrunner in the race to oppose Barack Obama in next year's presidential election, was also stinging in his criticism of the recent withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, claiming that it risked destabilising the country.

"I hope that we're able to see stability there but the president's failure to secure an agreement and maintain 10,000 to 30,000 troops in Iraq has to be one of his signature failures," Mr Romney said just hours after a co-ordinated wave of bomb blasts killed dozens and injured hundreds in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.