The ongoing war in Iraq is the most important issue in the upcoming election for many voters.
While the presidential candidates frequently trade barbs on the issue, and images from the Middle East inundate the news, it is difficult to pinpoint the differences between President George W. Bush and Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry on the issue.
A recent poll conducted by The Daily Pennsylvanian showed that nearly 45 percent of students surveyed cited foreign policy as the single most important issue in the upcoming election.
Experts say that many still cannot tell the difference between the candidates.
Both candidates have pledged not to reinstate a military draft, dispelling the fears of some students.
Bush has argued that peace can be secured in Iraq through training local forces, while Kerry says that more international support is necessary. Kerry has advocated accelerated training of Iraqi forces.
Both insist on carrying out the Iraqi national elections scheduled to occur in January.
But Political Science Department Chairman Rogers Smith dismissed claims that the candidates have similar plans for Iraq.
"There are real differences in what they will try to do," Smith said. "Kerry will try to make it a more genuinely multilateral process, ceding some decision-making authority to others in order to win their engagement. Whether that would work is an open question."
"Bush sees extensive reliance on others in national security matters as too dangerous to be pursued extensively," he added.
Middle East Center Director Robert Vitalis argued that there is little discernable difference between the two candidates' positions on Iraq.
"The Kerry strategists argued that he should 'run to the right' of Bush on the war. That is, he wouldn't raise questions of its ethics or even its importance to the so-called 'national interest' but would criticize him on the conduct of the war," said Vitalis, Political Science professor. "Then, [Kerry] would argue that we have an obligation to see the war through and leave the Iraqis better off than they are now."
However, Vitalis noted that there were inherent difficulties with such a policy for both candidates.
"The problem is, just as it is for Bush, that the prospects of attaining some thin version of our loftiest goals -- democracy, a thriving economy and so on -- will cost much more and take more time than we are willing to allow, and even then the prospects are not good. So [Kerry], like Bush, won't talk about the real costs," Vitalis said.
The two campaign staffs agree with Smith, though the difference may be semantic.
"I think a better way to phrase it is that Kerry is willing to cede our foreign national policies," Republican Ward Leader Matthew Wolfe said, arguing that Bush tried "very hard" to develop a consensus.
Given the similarities between the candidates, voters are forced to examine the roots of the war, and the issue has been endlessly debated by scholars.
Pointing to the United Nations Charter -- which permits a country to go to war only in urgent self-defense and when authorized by the United Nations Security Council -- Law professor Kim Scheppele argued that the Bush administration has alienated many of its allies and the rest of the world by going to war without a U.N. resolution.
At the beginning of the war, Bush said that the United States was defending itself from a foreseeable future attack.
"Bush is running as a war president, and no issue is more important than whether the war was justified and whether the aftermath has been well conducted," Smith said.
