Rick Santorum joined the 2012 presidential race Monday, pronouncing on Good Morning America, "We're in it to win." The former Pennsylvania senator will have a campaign kickoff ceremony later in the day in the coal fields of western Pennsylvania, where his father worked after immigrating from Italy. The following two days, Santorum will be in Iowa, a key state for the social conservative.

Santorum is currently averaging 2 percent in polls of GOP primary voters. He lost his 2006 bid for reelection by 18 points, but says voters can take a look at his record and say, "He may have lost, but he didn't flinch, he stood by what he believed in. And he continued the fight through the end."

The Republican attacked President Obama as a "paper tiger" who "appeased" countries like Iran. Iran is "an existential threat to the state of Israel, and the Israelis know it and the Americans know it. And this president has not stepped forward and done anything to stop that threat," Santorum said. The former senator was one of the few Republicans to be sharply critical of the president's foreign policy in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, saying in the first Republican debate that the only thing Obama had gotten right abroad was the stuff he'd cribbed from the Bush administration. "The decision he made with Osama bin Laden was a tactical decision," Santorum said. "It wasn't a strategic decision. The strategic decision was made by President Bush to go after him. What President Obama has done on his watch, the issues that have come up while he's been president, he's gotten it wrong strategically every single time."

Santorum also criticized the controversial plan put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan to overhaul Medicare--for not going far enough.

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Elspeth Reeve