WASHINGTON – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan delivered his most stern rebuke yet of President Obama's foreign policy Friday morning, telling an annual conference of social conservatives that the Obama administration gave mixed signals in response to this week's attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya and that the president has alienated America from its allies in the Middle East.

"Look across that region today and what do we see?" Ryan asked at the Family Research Council's annual Values Voter Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Northwest Washington. "The slaughter of brave dissidents in Syria. Mobs storming American embassies and consulates. Iran, four years closer to gaining a nuclear weapon. Israel, our best ally in the region, treated with indifference bordering on contempt by the Obama administration."

He told the crowd that "amid all these threats and dangers, what we do not see is steady, consistent American leadership."