Top Republican slams Obama on Iran, Russia

AFP 05/04/2010 15:35

A top US Republican lawmaker on Tuesday made a sweeping election-year attack on President Barack Obama's foreign policy, blasting a landmark nuclear cuts treaty with Russia and efforts to engage Iran.

With six months before November mid-term elections, Representative Eric Cantor urged US voters to back Republicans at "a pivotal time for America to restore its credibility by pursuing peace through strength."

"That's why conservatives must win in 2010. And when we retake Congress we will stand with defense-minded Democrats to stop the hemorrhaging of America's defenses," said Cantor, the number two House of Representatives Republican.

Cantor delivered the broadside in remarks prepared for delivery to the conservative Heritage Foundation think thank in Washington. AFP obtained excerpts of the speech.

The Virginia lawmaker vowed that "a Republican Congress will turn back harmful treaties like START," which Obama signed in April and now faces a ratification test in the sharply divided US Senate.

Cantor praised Obama for not seeking an immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and for "behind the scenes" victories against Al-Qaeda, notably through strikes by unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But he sharply assailed Obama's efforts to polish the US image in the Muslim world, tarnished under predecessor George W. Bush by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan amid a lack of progress in talks to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.