Obama responds to Bush's Nazi attack

Calling the Bush Administration's policy in Iran a "complete failure," Senator Barack Obama struck back forcefully against George Bush Friday in response to recent criticism directed at him by President George Bush.

During a speech in South Dakota, Obama struck back at what he called "dishonest" and "divisive" attacks from President George Bush and Senator John McCain.

Obama also responded to Senator McCain after the Arizona Republican "repeated this notion that I'm prepared to negotiate with terrorists," Obama said, which he adamantly denied. "The irony is yesterday just as John McCain was making these attacks, a story broke that he was actually guilty of the exact same thing he was accusing me of," said Obama.

"Well I want to be perfectly clear with George Bush and John McCain, and with the people of South Dakota. If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I am happy to have anytime, any place, and that is a debate that I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for," he said.

The Illinois senator then rattled off a litany of questions that he said Bush and McCain had to account for. He said the two men have to explain why we are entering our sixth year of war with Iraq, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, we've spent $600 billion on a war that was only supposed to last a few months, we've lost thousands of lives, not been made safer, and Osama Bin Laden is still at large, he said.

"We took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan," Obama said, and "Iran is the greatest strategic beneficiary of our invasion in Iraq," which he said made Iran stronger. "That's the Bush-McCain record on protecting this country," he said.

Obama also tried to tie John McCain to Bush's foreign policy and said "hasn't spelled out one substantial way in which he'd be different from George Bush when it comes to foreign policy." 

"They're trying to fool you and trying to scare you, and they're not telling the truth, and the reason is because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits," Obama said, and he promised "it's not going to work."

In a direct attack on his likely Republican rival in the fall, Obama said "He has nothing to offer except the naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism," he said, quickly adding: I'm running for president to change course, not to continue George Bush's course."

Invoking Presidents Kennedy and Reagan and President Bush's Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Obama called for "tough, principled and direct diplomacy" with Iran. There will be a clear choice in November. Fighting a war without end, or ending this war and bringing our troops home."

The Illinois senator also responded to McCain's statements on Thursday that he expected the war in Iraq to end by the end of his first term in 2013 if he becomes president. "We don't need John McCain's predictions about when the war will end," said Obama, "we need a plan to end it."