That won't stop Republicans from slamming the president on those issues, his handling of Iran's suspect nuclear program, his often tense relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or other matters.   

 

Republicans hope that tarring Obama as an unreliable friend to staunch US ally Israel will energize their conservative Christian base and douse his support among Jewish voters, a key bloc in heavyweight states such as Florida.   

 

The 90-minute debate at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, will be a high-stakes affair for some of the contenders seeking the party's nomination to take on the besieged incumbent.   

 

Texas Governor Rick Perry is looking to redeem his faltering campaign after a cringe-inducing memory lapse in the last debate left him unable to recall the third of three government agencies he would try to abolish if elected.   

 

Perry, a US Air Force veteran, has warned against "military adventurism" and raised eyebrows by envisioning sending US troops to Mexico to battle drug cartels and saying he would back an Israeli military strike on Iran.   

 

Asked whether he would support such an attack "even if it started a war in the region," Perry told CNN: "We cannot allow that madman (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) to get his hands on a nuclear weapon, because we know what he would do with it."   

 

Former pizza chain boss Herman Cain, running neck-and-neck with erstwhile Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney at the front of the pack, has been battling revelations of sexual harassment charges made against him in the 1990s and the perception that he is ill-prepared to be commander-in-chief.   

 

Cain warned in a recent PBS television interview that China was "a military threat" because it is "trying to develop nuclear capability" -- even though Beijing has had atomic weapons since the 1960s.   

 

He also suggested he would be willing to trade prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for a US soldier taken hostage, then recanted, and derisively said he did not need to know who the president of "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan" was to lead the United States.   

 

On Libya, Romney and former House speaker Newt Gingrich first criticized Obama for not involving the US military to protect civilians, then pirouetted to criticize him for doing exactly that.   

 

And Wednesday's CNBC television debate on economic issues found none of the candidates especially sure-footed on the question of how to safeguard the already brittle US economy from Europe's crushing debt crisis.   

 

Cain said he would "focus on the domestic (US) economy first," Romney vowed to resist "an effort to try and draw us in" to help Europe, which must "take care of their own problems."   

 

Propping up Europe will only "prolong the agony," said Republican Representative Ron Paul, who called to "liquidate" sovereign debt, while former US China envoy Jon Huntsman worried about "contagion" of US banks seen as "too big to fail."   

 

Former American ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a staunch conservative who has not endorsed a candidate, told AFP the contenders have to explain the relationship between the US economy and national security.   

 

"What is required here is describing how you advance American interests even though the economy is the top issue. The president has to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time," he said. 

 

 "You can't have a strong national defense without a vigorous economy, but over the long run you can't have a strong economy without peace in the world. And that's what America has provided," he added.   

 

Bolton also said the candidates should weigh in against "devastating" automatic cuts of $600 billion over 10 years if a special committee on reducing the US debt fails to agree on a $1.2 trillion deficit-cutting plan.   

 

Democrats say they aren't worried about Republican assaults, noting high US public approval for withdrawing from Iraq and pointing to the US commando raid in May that killed Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden as a sign of strength.   

 

"The Republican candidates will be hard-pressed to find fault with the President's national security record, which is among the most successful in decades," said Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.

 

Source: EJP