US new presidential candidates foreign policy views

Recently reading Barack obama's "The Audacity of the hope", many thoughts are appearing during reading process.

What the US presendential election is all about? What are the different political views regarding foreign policy from both Republican and Democratic candidates? Gathered few points here to share with others

Foreign policy is one of the key battleground of the US presidential election, with Republican John McCain considering himself as the better commander-in-chief and Democratic candidate Barack Obama went on a trip to Afghanistan, the Middle East and Europe in July.

Here are the comparison of both candidates' foreign policy towards different regions in the world.

Middle East

Iraqi war was one of the most prominent issue within the US foreign policy, Republican candidate John McMain was one of the prominent proponent of the original decision to invade Iraq.

He believes that the US troops should remain until Iraq has been stabilised, and the Iraqi government should be able to maintain order by itself. He predicted that most troops would be home by 2013, and he is also in favour of a permanent US military presence in the country.

The opposition candidate Barack Obama strongly opposed the idea of invading Iraq, and has pledged to begin removing troops as soon as he enters the White House.

But he mentions that he would take advices from commanders on the ground about the best way to remove troops.

He also expresses his concern of reduced military presence after most troops have withdrawn, in order to enforce counter-terrorism measures against al-Qaeda.