Obama, McCain duel in foreign policy row

WASHINGTON, Saturday (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain traded furious foreign policy barbs Friday, in a three-way row over how to deal with US foe Iran originally sparked by President George W. Bush. Obama, the Democratic presidential frontrunner, said he was ready to do battle at anytime and at any place on the foreign policy records of Bush and McCain, the Republican presumptive nominee.

“They are trying to fool you, and trying to scare you. They are not telling the truth,” Obama said in South Dakota, a day after Bush ignited the row by implying in a speech in Israel that Democrats want to appease terrorists.

“The American people have had enough of the division and the bluster,” Obama said, and argued that Bush's policy of declining to talk to Tehran had been a “complete failure” which McCain wanted to prolong.

The quarrel was an early preview of the foreign policy spats likely to mark a potential general election campaign between Obama, the Illinois senator who has an overwhelming lead over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race, and McCain.

“George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” Obama said, portraying US Iraq policy as disastrous, and noting that al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden was still at large. He also accused McCain of misrepresenting his stance towards Hamas, and said the Arizona senator had gone back on his own earlier comments that the United States would eventually have to talk to the militant Palestinian group.

Obama was referring to an article in the Washington Post by James Rubin, a former official in president Bill Clinton's administration, which quoted McCain as saying Washington would have to talk to Hamas “sooner or later.” But the McCain campaign later accused Rubin of lying, saying he had selectively quoted their candidate by omitting his warnings that any dialogue would have to be subject to strict conditions.

McCain hit back personally during a speech to the powerful gun lobby in Kentucky, saying Obama's offer to speak to Iran raised questions about his qualifications.“Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric ... in unconditional meetings with a man who called Israel a stinking corpse, an armed terrorist who kills Americans, will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program,” he said, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It is reckless. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional meetings will advance our interests.” “It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that's not the world we live in,” McCain said.

“And until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment, and determination to keep us safe.”Bush on Thursday implicitly compared Democratic policies to appeasement of the Nazis during a speech in Israel's parliament.

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.””We have heard this foolish delusion before. “We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,” Bush said, drawing parallels with the 1930s capitulation to the Nazis.

“That's exactly the kind of appalling attack that's divided our country and that alienates us from the world,” Obama said of Bush's comments. Bush advisor Ed Gillespie told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president headed to Saudi Arabia that the White House had not tried deliberately to get in the middle of the 2008 election campaign.

“We did not anticipate that it would be taken that way,” he said of Bush's remarks, adding that they might be seen by some people as a rebuke to former US president Jimmy Carter over his recent meetings with Hamas.

But Obama, at a press conference in South Dakota, dismissed that idea.“This White House is very media savvy and knows what it's doing.“The implication was that if you object to George Bush's policies of non-engagement, then, you know, you are being soft.”Obama said in a debate last July that he would be willing to hold talks, without preconditions, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.