John McCain, Barack Obama trade charges on Iran, Iraq
CAMPAIGN '08
Republican McCain, in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, blasts Democrat Obama for his votes and views on Iran. Obama's campaign says McCain is clinging to failed policies.
WASHINGTON — Republican John McCain today took aim at likely Democratic presidential opponent Barack Obama, blasting him for not voting to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization and saying he wants to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq "regardless of the consequences to our national security."
In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, McCain also belittled Obama for wanting to talk to Tehran.
"The idea that they [the Iranians] now seek nuclear weapons because we refuse to engage in presidential-level talks is a serious misreading of history," McCain said. Citing repeated and unsuccessful efforts by the Clinton administration to reach out diplomatically to Iran, the Arizona senator said Obama was offering up the proposal "as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before."
Noting that Obama opposed the military surge that has brought "progress in Iraq," McCain told the pro-Israel group that the Illinois senator intended to withdraw one or two brigades per month from Iraq "regardless of the conditions in Iraq, regardless of the consequences for our national security, regardless of Israel's security and in disregard of the best advice of our commanders on the ground."
The Obama campaign responded quickly, accusing McCain of clinging to "a dangerous and failed foreign policy that has clearly made the United States and Israel less secure" and noting that the Illinois senator voted against the measure making the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization because it would have prohibited all imports and exports with Iran.
On the campaign trail, Obama today turned his attention to Michigan, a state he avoided for 10 months because party leaders broke Democratic National Committee rules by leapfrogging the state's primary to Jan. 15. In his second trip to Michigan in the last three weeks, seeking to re-introduce himself to voters there, Obama told a crowd in Troy that a vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term.
"George Bush and John McCain have been so focused on pursuing a flawed and costly war in Iraq that they've lost sight of our mounting problems here at home," he said. "Instead of working to fix our economy and lift up hardworking families, they've fought to extend a war that's costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars without making us any safer."
