Democratic presidential candidates hold a short-sighted, simplistic view of how to solve problems abroad, Sen. Joe Biden said earlier this week. Moreover, he said, the view resembles that of the current administration.

Bush and most of Biden's competitors for the presidential nomination in his party share the tendency, he said, to view each problem abroad in "splendid isolation." Biden called this view "incredibly naïve" while speaking Monday to editors and reporters at the Concord Monitor. He said that the world has changed since the 1990s and that America's credibility abroad has suffered under an administration that has failed to consider other countries' viewpoints.

Several times, the Bush administration could have better protected America's interests by working harder to reach a consensus with its allies, he said. If the president had brokered an agreement with Turkey to allow troop passage before invading Iraq, Biden said, the domestic insurgency that followed Baghdad's fall could have been stymied. If the president had established a policy toward Russia with Europe when President Vladimir Putin began to move toward authoritarianism, his rise could have been curtailed. And if Bush would endorse Biden's plan to support local governance in Iraq, the country could stabilize.

"We don't try to connect the dots," he said. "There has been a tendency to think you can deal, in isolation, with single countries."

In the case of Iran, Biden blames Bush and Hillary Clinton for strengthening President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both supported a nonbinding resolution that classified part of the country's military as a terrorist organization.

The markets have responded to fears of a U.S. attack on Iran.

"The reason oil prices went up again is because Hillary and the others supported that resolution," he said. "It's a security premium."

With higher oil prices, Biden said, Ahmadinejad faces less internal criticism about an otherwise poor economy.

Biden said that Hillary Clinton's foreign policy would likely resemble that of Bill Clinton, and therefore be outdated. Barack Obama, he said, has yet to put forward any concrete foreign policies.

Biden has written a Iraq resolution that has passed both houses of Congress. It would allow for more autonomy in Iraq's ethnic regions. The troop surge could not continue past this spring, he said, without stretching the military beyond its capacity.

"The military has done its job," he said. "Violence really is down, but the reason it's down is local cooperation. Nothing is coming from the central government."

Biden said that he has met with top Shia and Sunni leaders in Iraq, who endorsed his plan, along with the leaders of the five permanent members of the United Nations security council.

"My argument has been, all along - literally, from before the war began - that the idea of generating a strong central government, with shared powers out of Baghdad, was not going to happen out of the lifetime of anybody in the United States Congress," Biden said. "Period."

But until Iraq is stable, he said, other countries will be unlikely to support the United States. He said that the country has "virtually no credibility" overseas after invading Iraq, mishandling Afghanistan and, more recently, posturing for war in Iran.

In terms of domestic policy, Biden said, good ideas must be backed up by pragmatic, achievable goals. Like the other Democratic candidates, he said that he would invest $50 billion in renewable energy. But he would also sign executive orders requiring that all federal vehicles get 40 miles per gallon, and all federal buildings meet green building standards.

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