Slamming the Bush administration for "ignoring" major global developments that included the rise of India and China, a prominent US lawmaker has said that it was pursuing a policy that seemed "obsessed with the war on terrorism".

"By exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests, President (George W) Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world," Senator Joseph Biden said in Washington in a campaign speech on 'Renewing American Leadership'.

"At the heart of this failure is an obsession with the 'war on terrorism' that ignores larger forces shaping the world and the lives of Americans in this new century: The emergence of China, India, Russia [Images] and a united Europe; the spread of lethal weapons and dangerous diseases; uncertain supplies of energy, food and water. A rapidly warming planet; the challenge to freedom from radical fundamentalism," Biden added.

Instead of focusing on these forces, Biden, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee charged that Bush "has fixated on a small number of radical groups that hate America, turning them into a 10-foot tall existential monster that dictates every move we make."

"Al Qaeda [Images] must be destroyed. Its ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction must be stopped. But to compare terrorism with an all encompassing ideology like Communism and Fascism is evidence of profound confusion," Biden said.

He said the presidential election on November 4 was "a vital opportunity" for America to start anew.

"That will require more than a good soldier. It will require a wise leader. (Democratic presidential nominee) Barack Obama [Images] is that wise leader. The Senator from Illinois has the judgment, the intellect, and the steel in his spine to lead America out of the deep hole we've dug for ourselves here at home and around the world," Biden said, himself at one time a presidential aspirant.