WASHINGTON — Republican John McCain warned Monday that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten Israel and cautioned that withdrawing troops from Iraq would weaken the entire Middle East as he courted Jewish voters wary of Democrat Barack Obama.
“The threats to Israel’s security are large and growing, and America’s commitment must grow as well,” the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting said in a speech, expressing strong support for a U.S. ally and attempting to raise doubts about Obama.
McCain is making a play for Jewish voters while Obama, who trailed Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton by 8 percentage points among them in the Democratic primaries, is working to reassure members of this constituency who have expressed some unease about his candidacy.
In the speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, McCain called Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons an unacceptable risk and chastised Obama anew for his expressed willingness to meet with leaders of U.S. enemy nations, including Iran.
“Rather than sitting down unconditionally with the Iranian president or supreme leader in the hope that we can talk sense into them, we must create the real-world pressures that will peacefully but decisively change the path they are on,” McCain said.
Obama has argued that McCain is advocating the same policy as President Bush and that the approach is not working, saying in a recent Fox News interview: “Iran is stronger now than when George Bush took office. . . . And the fact that we have not talked to them means that they have been developing nuclear weapons, funding Hamas, funding Hezbollah.”
McCain said it is wrong to suggest Iran is trying to develop a nuclear program because the U.S. won’t engage in presidential-level talks. The Arizona senator said the Clinton administration in particular tried to engage Iran for two years, even lifting some sanctions, to no avail.
“Even so, we hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before,” McCain said.
A Gallup poll released Monday found that two-thirds of people said they believe it would be a good idea for the president to meet with the leaders of enemy countries. About six in 10 favor the president meeting specifically with the leader of Iran, including most Democrats and independents and about half of Republicans.
At a forum later in Nashville, Tenn., McCain was asked how he would respond, as president, if Iran were to bomb Israel. “We will not allow a second Holocaust,” McCain said, but he did not elaborate. Instead, McCain called for sanctions to pressure Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions.
