Simple slogans work best in political campaigns, but they don't produce well-informed debate. That's especially true when the subject is as complex as national security, the defining issue in this presidential race. Republicans prefer to make America safer by fighting the enemy in Iraq. Democrats promise to bring the troops home. What are the voters to think?

At this critical juncture, they don't need slogans. They need an unvarnished view of what has happened in the six years since President Bush launched his “war on terror”. For whatever it is worth, this is the picture as I see it with the perspective of a long career of reporting from abroad:

1. IRAQ. America relieved Iraq of a dictator but short-sighted planning has left Iraq in the throes of violent power struggles, with an increasingly sectarian government that lacks the will to reunite the country. American attempts to train Iraqi security forces may have made things worse, since those same forces are part of the power struggles. The most likely prospect is that Iraq will finally split into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish entities, and if that happens, neighboring countries will be sucked into the conflict.

2. IRAN. America strengthened the hand of the ayatollahs by toppling their worst enemy, Saddam Hussein, and then rebuffed Iran's initial offers to help pacify Iraq. Iran now seems on course to become the next nuclear weapons power in the area, and as a result other Middle East countries may be lining up to join the nuclear club.

3. AFGHANISTAN. America and its NATO allies toppled the Taliban but have not committed sufficient men and money to carry through the effort to stabilize and make secure a country that showed initial signs of progress after the invasion. Old hands there say that most Afghans now take it for granted the Taliban will return to power.

4. PAKISTAN. And next door to Afghanistan, the country that the Bush administration embraced as a key ally in the “war on terror” has become an overt nuclear weapons power, a principal refuge and training ground for Al Qaeda and its cohorts, and – with President/General Musharraf's declaration of emergency – has shown that it is neither democratic nor stable.

5. ISRAEL/PALESTINE. The running sore of the Middle East – the Arab-Israeli dispute that defines how most Muslims see America – remains untreated. President Clinton made a determined run at bringing the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the peace table, but started too late. President Bush's new effort to sponsor a peace agreement is clearly both too little and too late. Anti-American sentiment is running high in the Muslim world.

6. OIL. America has paid too little attention to its own back yard in South America, where Hugo Chavez provides 15 per cent of U.S. oil imports, and many of the countries in other parts of the world that feed America's energy hunger show signs of instability.

7. DEMOCRACY. The Bush administration's promotion of democracy abroad has produced less than promised. The color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Lebanon have faded, and the Palestinian election demonstrated that free elections do not necessarily produce friendly governments.

8. HOMELAND SECURITY. Last but by no means least, there has not been a major terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. That positive accomplishment has to be weighed in the scales against all the other negatives listed above.

But voters need more than a rear view mirror to decide which direction their country should take. They need to know more about the policies of the candidates. And since campaign slogans are not very good indicators of what politicians do once they take office, here's my brief summary of what their national security and foreign policy advisors seem to be proposing:

Basically the Republicans are promising more of the same. They are still asking Americans to support the soldiers in Iraq, and some in the hawkish wing of the party see the “war on terror” as World War III (or IV, if you count the Cold War) and would favor bombing Iran to stop it from producing nuclear weapons.

The Democrats are proposing that America pull in its horns a bit, although they don't put it that bluntly. They favor containment of Iran (as of the Soviet Union in the Cold War) and in general prefer multilateral action and cooperation with allies. They think America should lead by example rather than fiat, and believe moral authority is more potent than bombs.

In the end, the differences between the parties on national security may be less real than they seem. Both Republicans and Democrats know they cannot maintain the current military strength in Iraq, and would find different reasons for drawing down the troops. They would have no choice, unless Americans want to start drafting soldiers.

As always, voters will have to wait until a new administration faces the challenges of office to see what it will actually do. Remember candidate George W. Bush's promises of a gentler foreign policy? It's the winners, not the voters, who have the last word.