WASHINGTON: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will visit the Middle East, including Iraq, Israel and the West Bank, next week. Yesterday, he outlined his foreign policy objectives and argued that the open-ended war was diminishing US security and damaging the US economy.

Obama said his first priority would be to end the war in Iraq and the second to take the war to Al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Earlier yesterday, President George W. Bush rejected any “artificial” timetable for withdrawing US troops, saying a decision must be made “as conditions permit.”

Obama’s speech, delivered in Washington yesterday, is part of an attempt by the Illinois senator to bolster his national security credentials. A new poll, conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, reveals a majority of Americans prefer Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, to serve as the nation’s commander-in-chief over Obama.

Obama has not backed down. Rather he told Americans that the Iraq War is a dangerous distraction and that the war in Afghanistan is “a war that we have to win.”

But Middle East experts in Washington wonder how he is going to extricate himself from the sticky wicket he got himself into when — speaking at the pro-Israel AIPAC annual convention last month — he said Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel.

If elected, he said, he will seek to withdraw US troops within 16 months of taking office, “make sure the United States has no permanent bases in Iraq,” and will make “tactical adjustments” after speaking to the US commanders on the ground.

“This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century,” Obama said.

His plan for securing the country includes finishing the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taleban, securing nuclear weapons from “terrorists and rogue states,” reaching energy security and “rebuilding our alliances.”