McCain's Experience Shows Through

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Tuesday, August 12, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Russia's brutal invasion of Georgia caught America off guard. But it did give voters an idea of what to expect from a President McCain or a President Obama, and right now the differences are stark.

John McCain understood just what was happening and called it right on the first shot.

"Russian military forces crossed an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia," he said as the news broke. "The very existence of independent Georgia — and the survival of democratically elected government — are at stake."

He was blasted by pundits as being too extreme, but events now show he was right. McCain grasped the regional implications, too.

"Russia has used violence against Georgia to send a signal to any country that chooses to associate with the West and aspire to our shared political and economic values," he said.

As he spoke, tiny Estonia and weak Ukraine began efforts to aid Georgia. Western Europe's greater powers wrung their hands.

McCain also comprehended what the attack meant for U.S. influence in the world — the specter of an ally bleeding while friend and foe alike eyed our response.

"Russian aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance" to the U.S., he said. He masterfully warned Russia off the cuff of specific consequences if it didn't leave — a United Nations Security Council condemnation even if Russia vetoes it; an emergency NATO session for a peacekeeping force, and a potential end to Russia's NATO partnership; a G-7 meeting that could kick Russia out; and beefed up Eastern European defenses.

In contrast, Barack Obama was all over the map, first equivocating Georgia and Russia as equally at fault and calling like a tired parent for all sides to just stop, making no moral distinction between an invader state and a nation invaded.

"Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and avoid escalation into a full scale war," he said. It was a call for peace at any price, and implied that if Georgia should take exception to a foreign invasion, its self-defense was culpable. Jimmy Carter would be so proud.

Obama then lazily called on the U.N. to take care of the problem, which ignores the U.N.'s long record of inaction. All the same, turning it over to the U.N. conveniently extricates the U.S. from any responsibility to an ally and shields Obama from peace lobby criticism.

Obama then shifted to a slightly tougher line with more U.N. involvement, easily done with 300 foreign policy advisers, apparently including Hollywood actor George Clooney.

Obviously, one candidate has a superior sense of America's strategic interests and the emerging threats over the other, and Russia's invasion of Georgia has laid it out starkly.

McCain has a consistently clear reading on America's role in the world. He's seen war up close in Vietnam, and knows the mentality of tyrants and thugs. He also has focused on foreign affairs for decades, helping found Ronald Reagan's International Republican Institute in 1983, which, along with the National Democratic Institute, has attempted to spread democracy through the world. It's not surprising that he calls for a league of democracies to replace the stagnant U.N. and ineffective multilateral organizations.

McCain has been calling Russian intentions right since 1999, when he warned that Vladimir Putin was bad news and said Russia's strike at Chechnya would in time spread to Georgia.

It was later echoed in his defiant support of the surge in Iraq, which challenged conventional wisdom at the time but has since brought America a real victory in a long war.

It was also there in 1994, when the former POW defied Republicans to urge the normalization of trade relations with Vietnam, giving President Clinton, a draft dodger, crucial legislative cover to lift the embargo. Events show he provided America with a vital partner and emerging ally to counter the growing power of China in Southeast Asia. McCain cited that strategic picture in 1994.

In 1988, he was one of the loudest advocates for Reagan's missile shield in Europe, bluntly saying that supporters of what was then derisively called "Star Wars" "believe in protecting our security," while "opponents believe in undermining our security." Today, with military tests successfully knocking missiles out of the sky, the wisdom of that is obvious, too.

All of this shows that McCain is rapidly emerging as the 3 a.m. president.