Republican presidential candidate John McCain called yesterday
for a more cooperative foreign policy, claiming that the U.S. must be a
“good and reliable” friend and must stop excluding its allies, showing “decent
respect to the opinions of mankind.” His statement is drawing a sharp contrast
to the past years under President’s George W.Bush administration.
“We cannot build an enduring peace based on freedom by
ourselves, and we do not want to,” he told the Los Angeles World Affairs
Council according to the New York Times. “We have to strengthen our global
alliances as the core of a new global compact,” he added.
In his speech he touched many important issues like the
global warming, fighting AIDS in Africa, free
trade and nuclear proliferation. Regarding the war in Iraq, he insisted that a withdrawal would be “an
unconscionable act of betrayal, a stain on our character as a great nation” and
that the presence of the American troops in Iraq is needed in order to transform
the region into a “peaceful, stable, democratic” state.
His rival, Senator Barack Obama had an immediate reaction, declaring
in a statement that “John McCain is determined to carry out four more years of
George Bush’s failed policies, including an open-ended war in Iraq that has cost us thousands of
lives and billions of dollars while making us less safe.”
Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Clinton affirmed that she and
McCain have a fundamental disagreement on Iraq,
as “like President Bush, Senator McCain continues to oppose a swift and
responsible withdrawal from Iraq.”
McCain claimed that the two Democratic candidates “are
arguing for a course that would eventually draw us into a wider and more
difficult war that would entail far greater dangers and sacrifices than we have
suffered to date,” the Associated Press reports.
In his statement, McCain suggested that the U.S should be a
model for other nations and a new global coalition of more than 100 democratic
countries should be created. He also said that he discussed his ideas last week
with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and with French President Nicolas
Sarkozy.
