Editor’s note: This month, the two major candidates for president or their representatives respond to a Denver Post request for their plans on tackling four major issues. Today, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain outline their platforms on national security and Iraq.
The next president of the United States will not have to focus on the fight on whether we should have gone into Iraq or not. The next president will be charged with ensuring that our troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have the necessary tools to accomplish their mission. He will have to have the leadership experience and judgment to create the opportunity to succeed and return home — not as a failed fighting force, but as victors with the honor due them as defenders of our nation.
I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there. The next president is going to have to decide how we leave, when we leave, and what we leave behind. It is a decision which must be based on the reality of the situation, which includes the acknowledgement that the surge in Iraq has worked. Ignoring the facts on the ground is the height of irresponsibility and a failure of leadership.
With Iraq, we must remember the lessons of our involvement in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. After America helped Afghan freedom-fighters drive the Russians back home, we washed our hands of the region. We left a vacuum in which groups like the Taliban and al-Qaeda found sanctuary and thrived. We must not leave Iraq and Afghanistan as places where terrorists can again take root. We must be able to complete the work needed in Iraq for a failure there will be calamitous to our mission in Afghanistan and our security as a whole.
While Iraq and Afghanistan represent important security issues, we must not lose focus on the threat Iran presents to the region and what a resurgent Russia means to the world. I refuse to embrace Senator Obama’s misguided plans to meet with Iran’s leadership with no preconditions. A leader with an appetite for nuclear weapons who states, in unequivocal terms, that he wishes to wipe a cherished ally like Israel off the map should never have his views endorsed by a meeting with the president of the United States. A nuclear-armed Iraq presents an unacceptable threat to Israel, our allies, the region and beyond.
In recent months, we have seen Russia continue to flex their military muscle. It has invaded the sovereign democracy of Georgia, and it has recently announced naval exercises with Venezuela. Russia must know that America’s leader is resolute in our respect for international boundaries and norms. Senator Obama’s reactions to the Georgian invasion showed the world that he is not ready to hold the office the world looks to for stability. You don’t tell a friendly country to show restraint after it was the one that has just been invaded.
The next president must be ready to lead, ready to show that this country’s best days are yet to come, and ready to establish an enduring peace based on freedom that can safeguard American security for the rest of the 21st century. The next president must have the first-hand experience in dealing with those threats. And he must have the wisdom to know what his decisions mean for our security. It is not a time for on-the-job training. I am ready.
