The lesson learned from Iraq was that "You can't have a failed strategy... that... leads us towards defeat."
Wow.
Thanks for that John. That was some depth there. Your foreign policy mastermind, ladies and gentlemen.
That being said, I think John McCain won this debate, not by a huge margin, but Obama was a bit TOO much of a nice guy and ceded the floor to him, whereas McCain rambled on and on and basically filibustered some of his responses. Obama referred to McCain as John (and once, Tom, for some reason), McCain didn't reciprocate. Obama addressed McCain, looked at him while he was talking to him, McCain scowled and looked forward over his podium. If Obama won anything tonight, it was the "I don't come across as a douchebag" part of the debate, and I think his answers on foreign policy demonstrated some depth of knowledge and that he has a few ideas about what needs to be done overseas. Where he lost was in responding to McCain's attacks on him more than he attacked McCain.
By the way, I counted six separate occasions where McCain crossed the line from shading the truth to outright lying... Obama tried to point that out, but came across like he was complaining, and of course the average American isn't going to take the time to research. I thought the biggest loser of the debate was the moderator for just letting McCain get away with it: if you make a statement that simply isn't true, the other side gets to rebut that IMMEDIATELY, you don't get to keep rambling for 3 more minutes to bury that cheap shot in other points.