Senator John McCain speaking at the Élysée Palace in Paris on Friday after a meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy.
PARIS — Senator John McCain’s trip abroad this week — which took him from the Middle East to No. 10 Downing Street to the Élysée Palace here — was more than just a Congressional fact-finding trip, or even a candidate’s attempt to appear statesmanlike.
It was also an audition on the world stage for Mr. McCain in his new role as the Republican presidential nominee. And it offered him the chance to test his hope that he could repair America’s tattered reputation by shifting course on some of the policies that have alienated its allies, in areas like global warming and torture. But he is making his foray even as he embraces what much of the world sees as the most hated remnant of the Bush presidency: the war in Iraq.
At several stops along the trip, Mr. McCain struck a markedly different tone from that of President Bush. Mr. Bush is so unpopular, even with America’s allies, that people in Britain and France told pollsters last spring that they had even less confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs than they had in President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
Mr. McCain spoke in Britain and France about the need to take action to reduce global warming, a welcome stance in much of Europe, which accused Mr. Bush of doing too little in that area. And in an opinion article that ran in Le Monde and The Financial Times, Mr. McCain called for a “successor” to the Kyoto treaty on global warming, which Mr. Bush had opposed, an act that angered much of the world.
He also denounced torture and repeated his call to close the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that has sparked outrage around the world, writing that the United States should reach an “international understanding” about what it should do with its detainees.
“We need to listen to the views and respect the
collective will of our democratic allies,” Mr. McCain wrote in the article,
signaling a more collaborative tone after years in which the United States has
been widely criticized as conducting a headstrong, go-it-alone foreign policy.
“When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military,
economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right.
But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by
them.”
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