Bush below), Obama

Washington, May 15 (Reuters): President George W. Bush stirred up the campaign to replace him by suggesting today that Democratic front-runner Barack Obama’s pledge to talk to Iran’s leader amounted to “the false comfort of appeasement”.

Bush, on a visit to Israel to mark its 60th anniversary, became involved in presidential politics at home just as the man he has endorsed as his successor, Republican John McCain, was seeking to distance himself from the unpopular President in many ways.

But Bush and McCain are of the same mind on Iran. Both frequently criticise Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his threats against Israel and they believe he must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon, a goal Iran denies.

They are at odds with Obama, who has held firm to a position that if elected in November, he would be willing to meet with leaders of hostile nations like Iran, Syria and Cuba, believing the US has blundered in the past by refusing to talk to them.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said, without mentioning Obama’s name.

“We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history,” he said.

The White House said Bush was not specifically referring to Obama but rather all those who hold that position.

Obama said in response to Bush: “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack.”

“It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel,” he said.

“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President’s extraordinary politicisation of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel,” he said.

Iran has been a central issue in the presidential campaign, with McCain frequently accusing Tehran of sending explosive devices into Iraq used to kill US and Iraqi soldiers.

White House spokesperson Dana Perino insisted Bush did not specifically mean to target Obama, saying “there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that President Bush thinks we should not talk to”.

A prominent McCain backer, Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, said Bush “got it exactly right today” by rejecting the idea that “if only we were to sit down and negotiate with these killers they would cease to threaten us.” He did not mention Obama in a statement.

Edwards for Obama

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has endorsed Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Edwards ended his second bid for the White House in January after failing to win any of the early state nominating contests.

The announcement was a blow to Hillary Clinton, whose bid for the Democratic nomination appears all but lost, and brought Obama a welcome distraction from his landslide defeat on Tuesday in the West Virginia primary.