John McCain calls for vigilance on global warming, adds shades of gray to his Iraq position; skeptics call his claims rhetoric

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Wednesday called for greater vigilance in combating global warming, saying that a successor to the Kyoto Treaty should be enacted.

McCain called for the U.S. to be good "stewards of our planet," saying the treaty that U.S. has yet to ratify is necessary to preserve the Earth. A cap-and-trade system in which environmental credits are exchanged much like common stock is a system the Arizona senator said he favors.

"The risks of global warming have no borders," McCain said. "We and the other nations of the world must get serious about substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years or we will hand off a much-diminished world to our grandchildren."

Shades of gray in his Iraq position
McCain called for the environmental measures as he delivered what was billed as a major foreign policy address in Los Angeles. The Arizona senator tempered his tougher stand on issues such as Iraq by calling for moderation in how it conducts itself in the world.

He called for the U.S. to remain in Iraq until insurgents are quelled but added the U.S. needs to be a "model citizen" to the rest of the world. McCain's speech, in part, responded to criticism from Democratic rivals Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., who call for immediate withdrawal of troops from the region.
McCain said the U.S. cannot prematurely withdraw forces from Iraq or it could risk turning over the entire region to al Qaeda terrorists. He said the U.S. may have to keep a presence there for decades, much in the same vein as the Pentagon kept bases in Germany and Japan after World War II.

At the same time, though, McCain said he "detests" war. He also reiterated his call for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, saying terrorists should not be treated inhumanely.

"We must fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundation of our society," McCain said.

While McCain asserted that Democrats were short-sighted in their call for immediate withdrawal, he also said that he is not opposed to eventually leaving the region.
"I do not argue against withdrawal, any more than I argued several years ago for the change in tactics and additional forces that are now succeeding in Iraq, because I am somehow indifferent to war and the suffering it inflicts on too many American families," McCain said.

"I hold my position because I hate war, and I know very well and very personally how grievous its wages are. But I know, too, that we must sometimes pay those wages to avoid paying even higher ones later."

Skeptics call it rhetoric
Critics of McCain dismissed much of his speech as "rhetoric," saying the candidate was eloquent about the horrors of war but has a history of relying on military force to stake America's claim in the world.

"Days after 9/11 and before U.S. forces had even invaded Afghanistan, McCain was focused on attacking countries that had nothing to do with 9/11 - Iraq, Iran, Syria - and said picking which one to attack would be the tough part," the National Security Network said in a release issued shortly after McCain's speech.

McCain went on to address a number of foreign policy issues, following on the heels of a major speech on the economy delivered Tuesday in nearby Orange County.
Among other issues, he called for China to be more transparent about its military buildup in order to insure that it is "peacefully rising." He also called for a "league of democracies," a coalition of democratic states in order to protect their interests.