Unsparing in their criticism of US President Barack Obama, Republican presidential hopefuls disagreed in a campaign debate about the correct course in Afghanistan, the use of waterboarding and the wisdom of a pre-emptive military strike to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
“If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. And if you elect [former Massachusetts governor] Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon,” Romney said on Saturday night.
On waterboarding, former Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank chairman Herman Cain and US Representative Michelle Bachmann both said they would reinstate the technique designed to simulate drowning. Cain went one step further, adding that he would leave it up to military leaders — rather than their civilian superiors — to decide what forms of interrogation amount to torture, which he said he opposes.
Photo: Reuters
On Afghanistan, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and US Representative Ron Paul both said it was time for US troops to come home after a decade of war.
The debate, limited to foreign policy and national security issues, was a departure from a Republican campaign that has been almost exclusively about bashing Obama on the weak US economy and failure to create more US jobs.
The debate occurred less than two months before the formal selection of national Republican convention delegates begins on Jan. 3 in the Iowa caucuses, with the race remarkably unsettled. The national election is a year away, in November next year.
Romney, running a steady, it’s-all-about-the-economy campaign, has been at or near the top of the public opinion polls for months, while a succession of rivals vying to emerge as his principal challenger have risen and fallen in turn.
The latest soundings show Cain as the current leader in that sweepstakes, although former US House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich has risen significantly in national polls in recent weeks as Texas Governor Rick Perry has fallen back. While the subject matter of defense and foreign policy did not readily lend itself to a discussion of the principal campaign controversies, the race has had plenty of them in the past two weeks.
Cain has stoutly denied any and all charges of sexual harassment — four women have leveled accusations — while Perry embarked on an apology tour after failing in a debate on Wednesday night to remember the name of the third of three Cabinet-level departments he wants to abolish.
Bachmann, Huntsman, Paul and former senator Rick Santorum have all been contending among the second-tier candidates, trailing the evolving group of leaders.
While the Republicans were talking on Saturday about foreign policy, Obama was on the world stage, as the US’ diplomat in chief.
After meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Hawaii, he said the two men intend to “shape a common response” to new allegations that Iran has been covertly trying to build a nuclear bomb.
The issue is fraught because the regime in Tehran is harshly anti-Israel, a nation the US has pledged to defend.
If the presidential trip gave the Republicans pause, they did not show it in the 90-minute debate.
“There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran, and a few ways to be stupid. The -administration skipped all the ways to be smart,” Gingrich said.
The debate at Wofford College was crisp and any attempts to score points off a rival lacked the personal antagonism of earlier encounters.
The tone was set at the outset, when the Republicans were asked if they would support a pre--emptive strike to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Gingrich quickly agreed with Romney, saying that if all other steps failed, “you have to take whatever steps are necessary” to prevent the Islamic regime from gaining a nuclear weapon.
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