A World of Challenges

In the scrappy and often violent brand of rugby played at my school in South London, a hospital pass was a throw of the ball to a player when the opposition forwards were bearing down on him, guaranteeing him a bone-crushing place at the bottom of a pile of heavy-set teenagers with big boots.

There are several foreign policy issues where the Bush administration's hand-off to the incoming president is going to feel like a hospital pass.

Afghanistan

The incoming president will face a worsening insurgency by the Taliban and other extremists in Afghanistan, and the very real possibility that the next attack on the United States is already being planned just over the border in Pakistan.

On this issue, Senator Barack Obama has actually been the more hawkish of the two candidates and has pledged to boost troop levels in Afghanistan as he draws forces down in Iraq.

Senator John McCain - who has also promised more troops to the fight in Afghanistan - has slammed this plan: "You can't choose to lose a war in Iraq, in my view, in order to win in Afghanistan. Of course we have problems in Afghanistan, and as we succeed in Iraq there will be troops available to go to Afghanistan."

At a news conference with his national security team in late October, Obama pledged "a comprehensive strategy" in Afghanistan, including "more training for Afghan security forces, more non-security assistance to help Afghans develop alternatives to poppy farming, more safeguards to prevent corruption and a new effort to crack down on cross-border terrorism" from Pakistan.

McCain has also complained that Obama was showing his hand by declaring that he would authorize attacks on high-value al-Qaida targets in Pakistan if there was actionable intelligence.

"I'll get Osama bin Laden, my friends," he said at the second debate between the two candidates. "I'll get him no matter what, and I know how to do it. But I'm not going to telegraph my punches, which is what Senator Obama did."

Les Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations told reporters in a briefing last month, "I don't like what either candidate has to say" on the topic.

Neither of them, he said, was giving enough "consideration to the basic, overwhelming historic fact: No outside nation has ever tamed Afghanistan; they can barely tame themselves."

Iraq

Obama has pledged to remove one or two US brigades a month from Iraq and get all combat troops out within 16 months - using the timetable as a way of pressuring the Iraqi government to make progress on political goals.

"The only troops I will keep in Iraq will perform the limited missions of protecting our diplomats and carrying out targeted strikes on al-Qaida," Obama said last year. He also promised a diplomatic initiative to involve allies in the region, and even Tehran, in helping stabilize Iraq.

McCain has rejected the idea of timetable for withdrawal, promising instead to allow commanders on the ground to set the pace of the draw-down as they achieve their goal, which, according to a statement on his campaign website, is "an Iraq that can stand on its own as a democratic ally and a responsible force for peace in its neighborhood."

"I do not want to keep our troops in Iraq a minute longer than necessary to secure our interests there," adds the statement.

McCain has also rebuffed the idea of using a withdrawal timetable as leverage against the Iraqi government. "The success we've achieved so far was not because we were threatening them. The success we've achieved so far is because we told them we were staying," he told the New York Times last month.

Russia

The Russian invasion of Georgia over the summer provoked something of a rhetorical war between the two candidates, with each vying to use the toughest language. But while Obama has promised to support Russia's nervous neighbors like Ukraine, he says he will do so in a united front with Europe - a less hawkish stance than that of McCain, who has talked about expelling Russia from the G8 and wants to speed up NATO membership for Ukraine.

Both candidates have criticized President George W Bush for relying too much on his personal relationship with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. "I looked into Mr Putin's eyes and I saw three letters - a K and a G and a B," McCain said in the first debate, poking fun at Bush's comments about having seen Putin's soul there.

Iran

On almost no other issue are the lines between the candidates so sharply drawn as on the question of Iran and its nuclear program.

Both candidates have said that a nuclear-armed Iran is not acceptable, but while Obama has pledged engagement and high-level talks with Tehran, McCain has called for stronger sanctions and has dropped hints (and on one notorious occasion, joked) about military action.

"There's only one thing worse than the military option," he has repeatedly said. "And that is a nuclear-armed Iran."

Obama has spent a lot of time in the debates and elsewhere defending his call for engagement. Earlier this year, he told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: "I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as President of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leaders at a time and place of my choosing if, and only if, it can advance the interest of the United States.”

Yet, as Gelb points out, engagement is now the conventional wisdom in the US foreign policy establishment. "There's a broad consensus among people with foreign policy experience that [sitting down with Iranian leaders] has to be the next step," he said. Gelb was sharply critical of the hawkish tone the McCain campaign has adopted.

Pointing out that neither man had held executive posts, Gelb said, "neither candidate has much of a track record on foreign policy; they both have talk records. McCain's talk record is longer."

Adding that he had "known McCain for almost three decades," Gelb said that the foreign policy stance of the campaign was "very different" from the senator's "traditional pragmatic conservative" stance.

"This John McCain has dropped all [reference] to economic power, diplomatic power and talks almost exclusively in terms of military threats and going to war," Gelb said, calling his stance on Iran "utterly bananas."