Where McCain Hits Bush The Hardest

By Romesh Ratnesar/Washington

For John McCain, it was a moment in the sun: Veterans Day, a brilliant New Hampshire afternoon, the onetime war hero soaking up the applause at soldiers' homes and Main Street parades. But McCain didn't want to talk much about domestic hot buttons like health care and Social Security, or about his swelling poll numbers, or even about campaign-finance reform. "I want to talk for a moment about Chechnya," he said to a few reporters on his campaign bus, before launching into a critique of Russia's "brutal to the extreme" war and announcing that if he were President, he'd move to cut off the International Monetary Fund's loans to Moscow.

Tough-minded and spontaneous, the statement turned out to be a small triumph for McCain. George W. Bush unveiled a near identical position on Chechnya more than a week later--in a precooked foreign-policy address--but by then it sounded stale. "McCain was the first senior American politician to say that what the Russians are doing is genocide," says former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. "It was a gutsy call, and he called it just right." It was more than good timing. While campaign finance is his calling card, foreign affairs is McCain's intellectual passion. Flashing his foreign-policy credentials has become a crucial tactic, because it reminds audiences of his heroic past as well as the advantages he holds over Bush in expertise and experience. After delivering a wide-ranging foreign-policy speech in Washington last week, McCain all but dared his opponents to challenge him. "I'd love it if this were the only subject of discussion," he said.

Sometimes it is: McCain will often fill his travel time with animated discussions about global hot spots from Chechnya to China. When a local New Hampshire pol asked him a question about Lebanon last month, he unfurled a lengthy answer that included a consideration of whether Syrian President Hafez Assad will be succeeded by his son Bashar or his brother Rifaat. While McCain swipes at Bush's reliance on foreign-policy gurus--"When there is a crisis," he says, "I won't have to consult advisers"--he talks shop with many members of the foreign-policy firmament, including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Brzezinski. In those conversations, McCain's approach diverges from his blustery image. "He is sober, analytical and careful," Kissinger says. "I have never seen an emotional reaction from him on questions of foreign affairs."

Between McCain and Bush lie some real differences in both style and substance. McCain is less guarded about American pre-eminence and the role of America's "founding ideals" in foreign policy. Last week he outlined a more aggressive policy of "rollback" toward rogue states like Yugoslavia, Iraq and North Korea. But like Bush, McCain is a free-trade internationalist who believes the U.S. should participate in multilateral organizations and work with allies. McCain is more openly critical of China, calling its leaders "determined ... ruthless defenders of their regime"; but he and Bush support Chinese membership in the World Trade Organization. And both hammer the Administration for its Russia policies, for sending U.S. troops on too many peacekeeping missions and for a "mystifying uncertainty" about how to intervene in the world.

And yet McCain's position on American intervention has also wavered. In 1983 he stood up to one of his idols, Ronald Reagan, and called for a pullout of Marines from Lebanon. He was a staunch supporter of the Gulf War and the initial humanitarian mission in Somalia but demanded U.S. troops be withdrawn after the combat deaths of 18 Americans there. McCain vacillated over the Balkans: in 1993 he opposed air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs, but in late 1995 he lobbied hard to secure Senate support for Clinton's deployment of troops to enforce the Dayton peace agreement. McCain quickly soured on the mission but twice blocked G.O.P. efforts to withdraw funds for it. Though he was mercilessly critical of Clinton's halfhearted prosecution of the war in Kosovo, he agreed that American interests and credibility were threatened and that force was justified. He has since said that he "was completely wrong" to oppose similar action in Bosnia. "John's not an absolutist," says Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel. "In this kind of world, that would be damn dangerous."

Despite McCain's occasional inconsistencies, his supporters argue that he would have an unmatched amount of credibility and conviction when it really counts: the moment a President decides to send troops into conflict. "The decisions you face in the White House are 50.1 against 49.9, and there are persuasive people on both sides," Kissinger says. "McCain has had the sort of experience that he could not have survived without knowing who he was and what he stood for." Says Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, one of McCain's Democratic allies: "John has lived for years with these foreign-policy questions. It's not to say that someone who has not dealt with [them] cannot learn. It just takes time." McCain needs to convince voters that they can't afford to wait.

--With reporting by John F. Dickerson/Washington

With reporting by John F. Dickerson/Washington