From the New York Times, May 17, 2008

"Senator Barack Obama responded sharply on Friday to attacks on his foreign policy, linking President Bush and Senator John McCain as partners in "the failed policies" of the past seven years and criticizing them for "hypocrisy, fear peddling, fear mongering." ... Mr. Obama at first joked that he wanted to respond to "a little foreign policy dustup yesterday." But he quickly made it clear that he regarded the exchange as anything but funny, criticizing Mr. Bush and saying Mr. McCain "still hasn't spelled out one substantial way in which he'd be different from George Bush's foreign policy."

"In the Bush-McCain world view, everyone who disagrees with their failed Iran policy is an appeaser," Mr. Obama said. ... It's time to present Iran with a clear choice," Mr. Obama said. "If it abandons its nuclear program, support for terror and threats to Israel, then Iran can rejoin the community of nations. If not, Iran will face deeper isolation and steeper sanctions." The administration's policy has merely "empowered Iran," he said, with its unmitigated hostility. As a result, it is now Iran, not Iraq, he added, that "poses the greatest threat to America and Israel in the Middle East in a generation."

"Our Iran policy is a complete failure," Mr. Obama said. "And that's the policy that John McCain is running on." ... The Obama campaign said it wanted to move strongly and swiftly, guided by lessons learned from the 2004 campaign. "There is no question that when the president on foreign soil launches a political attack we need to respond with the facts and with force," said Bill Burton, national spokesman for the campaign. Mr. Burton said he expected many such confrontations between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain. "The truth is that there are many, many real differences," Mr. Burton said."