Republican presidential candidate John McCain says that Democratic rival Barack Obama’s policies would have led to defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan and caused the entire Middle East to erupt into war.

The Arizona Republican told a military audience on Friday, in his own words, “We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right.” That was a play on Obama’s book, titled “The Audacity of Hope.”

McCain spoke as Obama continued his tour of Europe.

McCain said, “The entire region might have erupted into war” if troops had been withdrawn prematurely from Iraq.