The Commander in Chief Test

This point gets made a lot, but rarely by referencing the candidates' actual words. Here's what John McCain and Barack Obama had to say when the country was debating the biggest foreign policy decision we've made in the last several decades.

John McCain, from a New York Times op-ed entitled The Right War for the Right Reasons:

Many critics suggest that disarming Iraq through regime change would not result in an improved peace. There are risks in this endeavor, to be sure. But no one can plausibly argue that ridding the world of Saddam Hussein will not significantly improve the stability of the region and the security of American interests and values. Saddam Hussein is a risk-taking aggressor who has attacked four countries, used chemical weapons against his own people, professed a desire to harm the United States and its allies and, even faced with the prospect of his regime's imminent destruction, has still refused to abide by Security Council demands that he disarm.

Isn't it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?

Barack Obama, from a speech delivered at a Chicago anti-war rally:

Now let me be clear: I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power.… The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him. But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors…and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

And for the record, in the same speech, Obama suggested a few better uses of our time and resources, including, "finish[ing] the fight with Bin Laden and al-Qaeda," securing loose nuclear weapons, and "fight[ing] to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon."