FACTBOX - McCain, Obama comments on foreign policy
Oct 7, (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain outlined contrasting views on U.S. foreign policy in their second presidential debate on Tuesday.
Here are some quotes:
IRAN
McCain
"If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, all the other countries will acquire them, too. The tensions will be ratcheted up."
"I want to make sure that we put enough pressure on the Iranians by joining with our allies, imposing significant, tough sanctions to modify their behavior. And I think we can do that."
Obama
"We cannot allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. It would be a game-changer in the region. Not only would it threaten Israel, our strongest ally in the region and one of our strongest allies in the world, but it would also create a possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.
"We've got to try to have talks, understanding that we're not taking military options off the table."
PAKISTAN
Obama
"We're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.
"And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."
McCain
"We need to help the Pakistani government go into Waziristan, where I visited, a very rough country, and -- and get the support of the people, and get them to work with us and turn against the cruel Taliban and others. And by working and coordinating our efforts together, not threatening to attack them, but working with them, and where necessary use force, but talk softly, but carry a big stick."
AFGHANISTAN
Obama
"We are going to have to make the Iraqi government start taking more responsibility, withdraw our troops in a responsible way over time, because we're going to have to put some additional troops in Afghanistan....
"We're also going to have to work with the Karzai government, and when I met with President (Hamid) Karzai, I was very clear that, 'You are going to have to do better by your people in order for us to gain the popular support that's necessary.'"
McCain
"We have to double the size of the Afghan army. We have to have a streamlined NATO command structure. We have to do a lot of things. We have to work much more closely with the Pakistanis.
"But most importantly, we have to have the same strategy (of a U.S. troop surge), which Senator Obama said wouldn't work, couldn't work, still fails to admit that he was wrong about Iraq."
RUSSIA
McCain
"We've got to show moral support for Georgia. We've got to show moral support for Ukraine. We've got to advocate for their membership in NATO. We have to make the Russians understand that there are penalties for these this kind of behavior, this kind of naked aggression into Georgia, a tiny country and a tiny democracy.
"And so, of course we want to bring international pressures to bear on Russia in hopes that that will modify and eventually change their behavior ... It will not be a re-ignition of the Cold War, but Russia is a challenge."
Obama
"We can't just provide moral support. We've got to provide moral support to the Poles and Estonia and Latvia and all of the nations that were former Soviet satellites. But we've also got to provide them with financial and concrete assistance to help rebuild their economies...
"I think (Russia) has engaged in an evil behavior and I think that it is important that we understand they're not the old Soviet Union but they still have nationalist impulses that I think are very dangerous."
(compiled by Andrew Quinn; editing by David Wiessler)
