CHICAGO — Republican John McCain accused Democrat Barack Obama of inexperience and reckless judgment for saying Iran does not pose the same serious threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did in its day.
The likely GOP presidential nominee made the criticism Monday in Chicago, Obama’s home turf.
“Such a statement betrays the depth of Sen. Obama’s inexperience and reckless judgment. These are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess,” McCain said at the restaurant industry’s annual meeting.
He was referring to comments Obama made Sunday in Pendleton, Ore.: “Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ ”
McCain listed the dangers he sees from Iran: It provides deadly explosive devices used to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sponsors terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and is committed to Israel’s destruction.
Responding to McCain, Obama told a town-hall rally later Monday in Billings, Mont., “Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat.”
But the Soviet Union posed an added threat, he said.
“The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons,” he said, “and Iran doesn’t have a single one.”
Obama said the threat from Iran had grown as a result of the U.S. war in Iraq.
“Iran is the biggest single beneficiary of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged,” he said.
