The Washington Post asked foreign affairs analysts and other experts for their assessments of the first presidential debate. Michael Rubin and Danielle Pletka offered these thoughts:

Resident Scholar  Michael Rubin

Obama's view of diplomacy appears both utopian and dangerous. Neither the Iranian nor North Korean nuclear programs are the result of too little talk; they are the result of too much. Iran built its covert enrichment program during its so-called dialogue of civilizations, a deception about which former Iranian president 's spokesman now brags. Partisanship is counterproductive. Democrats and Republicans blame each other for North Korean nuclear development, but the fault lies with the North Korean regime. Like Khatami, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-Il set out to cheat. Desperation for diplomacy let him succeed.

Here, Washington navel-gazing hurts national security, for it transposes responsibility from Tehran and Pyongyang and assumes that blame lies in U.S. intransigence. Take Obama's identification of preconditions as a hindrance to diplomacy: Three U.N. Security Council resolutions demanded that the Islamic Republic suspend its enrichment. To waive this requirement would, in effect, cast aside these resolutions unilaterally, predetermine the outcome of negotiations and ruin the prospect that Tehran (or Pyongyang) would ever again take U.N. resolutions seriously.

Unfortunately, the American people's desire for peace is not shared by many dictators. In such a world, coercion matters as much as engagement. President Theodore Roosevelt sought to "speak softly and carry a big stick." When candidates seek, a century later, to speak softly and carry a big carrot, it is not diplomacy; it is naivete.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.

______________

Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies

Obama is a capable speaker, a deft debater and a quick study. On issues that have raised doubts about his various positions on national security questions, he was able to explain in context his willingness to sit down and negotiate without preconditions with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other dictators. He was able to expand upon his desire to attack targets in Pakistan, and add nuance to the circumstances under which he would do so. He illuminated his sense of the American mission in Afghanistan, though he has clearly not contemplated the necessary strategic shifts. On Iraq, Obama was at a minimum clear in expressing his intention to withdraw American troops by a date certain, and his assumption that doing so would save money.

Unfortunately, what was missing from Obama's well-briefed presentation was a worldview that informs his disparate views about America's national security challenges. The presidency is not a defense of one's post-doctoral dissertation. Rather, leadership of the United States must be informed by a coherent worldview about how to address the threat of a belligerent Russia, a determined al-Qaeda, a menacing Iran and worse. While I now have confidence in Obama's ability to pronounce "Ahmadinejad," I remain confused about the guiding principles of a man who does not see the implications of defeat in Iraq for victory in Afghanistan and against al-Qaeda.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI.