Obama: Time to turn the page on Bush

Senator Barack Obama

Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama says it is time for the White House to turn the page on policies that have strengthened US enemies.

"It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel," said Senator Obama in a statement released on Thursday.

"Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power -- including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy," said the Democrat.

Obama made the remarks in response to President George W. Bush comparing the Democrat to a 'Nazi appeaser' for offering to negotiate with Iran and Syria.

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush had said in Israel.

"We have heard this foolish delusion before…As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history," the commander-in-chief had added.

The Illinois senator said it is unfortunate that the top US echelon made such a speech before the Israeli Knesset to launch 'a false political attack'.

"George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists," he added.

Bush: Obama a 'foolish' delusional