(WKTV) - In this week's "Where They Stand", a look at where the presidential candidates stand on the important issues to voters, we are looking at Iraq and Iran.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been the President of Iran since 2005.

Barack Obama says he would like to meet with Ahmadinejad with no preconditions, just to talk. That potential meeting has become an issue in this year's campaign. Obama has said "I trust the American people to understand that it's not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but our enemies like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did."

McCain has said "such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment, those are very serious deficiencies for an American President to possess."

But other than a possible face to face meeting, are there differences between McCain and Obama on Iran and its development of nuclear weapons?

Utica College political science professor Dan Underwood says "both have come out and said to avoid future attacks, homeland security, we might have to take military action in Iran because they're developing nuclear weaponry."

Underwood says although the economy is such a major issue this fall, the Middle East continues to be on the minds of the candidates and before any potential military action in Iran, we must focus on Iraq.

"McCain's position is that we won't leave Iraq until they are a democratic state, and the reason we want a democratic state there is we need stability, need friends, we need allies to help us sort out trouble in the Middle East. So we aren't leaving until they are a stable democracy, our presence is going to continue."

He says "Obama's position on that is well, let's withdraw most of our troops and leave a strike force in there. This idea of a strike force, this really elite, agile, highly intelligent group of soldiers that can handle insurgency, trouble when it occurs. When bad things happen, we've got people in place to take care of them."

Obama's plan, if elected, entails withdrawing troops in phases so that we are out of Iraq in 16 months, by the summer of 2010.