US Republican presidential candidate John McCain accused Democratic front-runner Barack Obama today of underestimating the threat posed by Iran and ridiculed his pledge to meet Iran's leader if elected.
Mr McCain, in a theme likely to play out in the campaign for the November election, sought to portray Obama as too inexperienced to be trusted as commander in chief.
At a speech to the National Restaurant Association in Obama's home town of Chicago, Mr McCain said the Democratic front-runner's stated desire to hold direct talks with the leaders of hostile countries like Iran "betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment."
Mr McCain said a meeting would grant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prestige and international legitimacy and probably would not persuade him to give up nuclear ambitions.
"It could very well convince him that those policies are succeeding in strengthening his hold on power, and embolden him to continue his very dangerous behavior. The next president ought to understand such basic realities of international relations," Mr McCain said.
Campaigning in Montana, Mr Obama said President John Kennedy's willingness to talk to the Soviet Union during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis averted a nuclear catastrophe with a country that posed a much greater threat than Iran does now.
"Why shouldn't we have the same courage and the confidence to talk to our enemies?" asked Mr Obama, who is on the cusp of defeating rival Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
"I'm not afraid that we'll lose some propaganda fight with a dictator. It's time for America to win those battles, because we've watched George Bush lose them year after year after year," he said.
Mr Obama said Iran has been strengthened by the US invasion of Iraq, which McCain supports.
"Demanding that a country meets all your conditions ... before you meet with them, that's not a strategy, it's just naive, wishful thinking," Mr Obama said.
Mr McCain said Iran obviously does not possess the military power the former Soviet Union had, "but that does not mean that the threat posed by Iran is insignificant."
He accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons -- Tehran denies this -- and said it is providing some of the deadliest explosive devices used in Iraq to kill US troops, is sowing discord in the Middle East and would like to destroy Israel.
"Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, that danger would become very dire, indeed. They might not be a superpower, but the threat the government of Iran poses is anything but tiny," the Arizona senator said.