McCain pledges to cut nuclear stockpile.
For Personal Use Only
John McCain yesterday vowed to lead a fresh global push towards nuclear disarmament if elected president, acknowledging that the US did not need all the atomic weapons in its arsenal.
The Republican presidential candidate made the pledge in a foreign policy speech that combined doveish commitments to multilateral diplomacy with hawkish rhetoric on Iraq, terrorism and Russia.
Mr McCain said that in addition to preventing countries such as Iran and North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons, the US must set an example by reducing its own atomic stockpile.
He said the US shared “an obligation with the world’s other great powers to halt and reverse the proliferation of nuclear weapons”, arguing for a renewal of the commitments made in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty four decades ago.
“We do not need all the weapons currently in our arsenal,” he said. “The United States should lead a global effort at nuclear disarmament consistent with our vital interests and the cause of peace.”
The remarks appeared designed in part to burnish Mr McCain’s appeal to liberals and answer criticism of his perceived bellicosity. Democrats have sought to portray the Arizona senator as a dangerous hawk who would prolong the war in Iraq and seek further conflicts elsewhere.
But in his speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, Mr McCain insisted that his experience in -Vietnam - where he was a prisoner of war for five years - had left him with a deep hatred of armed conflict.
Explaining his support for the war in Iraq, he said: “I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later.”
Mr McCain called for a strengthening of US relations with Europe and other democracies and renewed his commitment to tackling climate change. But he said that Washington must stand up to Moscow when US and Russian interests collide.
“We should start by ensuring that the G8, the group of eight highly industrialised states, becomes again a club of leading market democracies: it should include Brazil and India but exclude Russia,” he said.
“Rather than tolerate Russia’s nuclear blackmail or cyber attacks, western nations should make clear that the solidarity of Nato, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is indivisible and that the organisation’s doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defense of freedom.”
Filed by Anita Li under Arms Control, Proliferation and WMD, Democratization and Human Rights