Biden calls for new foreign policy view

WASHINGTON, April 17 (UPI) -- The United States can't afford another four years of Republican rule after the Bush administration's "failed" foreign policy, Sen. Joe Biden said Tuesday.

In a speech at Georgetown University in Washington, Biden, D-Del., told students the global community has changed over the past two decades with the emergence of China and India as major economic powers, the European Union and the technological revolution.

The Bush administration has not responded correctly to this new world, Biden said, because the president is "obsessed" with the "so-called war on terrorism," which the Delaware Democrat called a "failed foreign policy."

Biden credited Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, for repudiating some of Bush's foreign policy approaches.

"John recognizes the power of our example is as important as the example of our power … that allies that we respect, not disdain, can help advance our interests," he said.

Biden said McCain's statement suggesting the possibility of U.S. troops staying in Iraq for 100 years was intended as a comparison to the U.S. long-term presence in post-war Germany, Korea and Bosnia.

"But Germany, Korea or Bosnia after the peace are nothing like Iraq today -- with thousands of bombs, hundreds of American injured and dozens of Americans killed every month," Biden said. "And there is little prospect Iraq will look like them anytime soon."

He criticized McCain for remaining "wedded" to the Bush administration's Iraq policies.

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Teneille Gibson, Medill News Service