Republican Mitt Romney said yesterday that America is at an "absolutely critical time" in its history and his experience in the public and private sectors makes him the most qualified candidate to deal with the massive challenges.

In an interview, Romney said Islamic jihadists are seeking "the collapse of the world as a civilized place." He said they do not current have the power to accomplish their mission, but are "seeking that power."

The terrorists will not "defeat the United States but it could cause us massive pain and disruption," Romney said. He said they "have the intent of actually bringing down the West and the civilized world."

Romney cited the emergence of China as a global economic power, "which will certainly develop into a global military power."

At the same time, he said, "We have been singularly unwilling to deal with the most critical problems that face us internally," such as overspending, entitlement, health care, immigration, reliance on foreign oil and "weaknesses" in the education system.

"Taken in the direction that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John Edwards would take us, we would end up as a second-tier power," Romney said. "We would end up down the road having a weaker military, weaker economy, weaker family structure and on the pathway to being Europe, and that is unacceptable."

Romney said he has spent his adult life making difficult decisions in business, running the 2002 Winter Olympics and being the Massachusetts governor.

"I think I'm relatively unique in the field as someone who has actually dealt with a wide array of very challenging circumstances in the private sector and public sector," he said.

Romney said he could foresee no "reasonable circumstances" under which he would call for a military draft. He predicted that the Iraq war will not be "the big, dividing issue in '08, believe it or not.

"Come the fall of '08, for all of Hillary's rhetoric, she's not going to be demanding a dramatically different course in Iraq than the Republican nominee will," Romney said.

►Gregg endorses Romney (2)

He said that by next fall, U.S. troops will "be playing more of a support role" and "the gap (between the political parties) will not be as huge." He said almost all Republican candidates have criticized President George W. Bush's handling of the war, while Clinton, who he assumes will win the Democratic nomination, "voted to go into Iraq" and should not "pretend like you were in a different place.

"I'm not convinced they're going to beat us on this," he said.

Romney also said yesterday that if he is the GOP nominee, he will make sure that all of New Hampshire's Republican delegates are seated at the national convention next summer. The Republican National Committee's executive committee has voted to punish New Hampshire and the Republican parties in four other states with early nominating contests by withholding half their convention delegates because they are violating a RNC rule banning any primaries or caucuses prior to Feb. 5.

Romney said that as Republicans look to fixing the crowded nominating calendar in the future, he, as the nominee, would consider it "essential" that Iowa and New Hampshire continue as the first caucus and first primary.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani made the same promise in a separate interview yesterday.

Romney said the United States is "a moral nation," but he said, "Some of the cultural elements of America, which are essential to preserve our strength, are under attack" from the "liberal perspective.

On education, Romney supports the testing required by the No Child Left Behind law. But he said its purpose "was essentially to reign in the excessive power of the national teachers unions in a way that the states and localities can not do."

He said the unions have "pushed so hard in the interests of their members that they have in some respects sacrificed the pre-eminence of the need to teach the child."

China's ability to trade on a "unlevel economic playing field," and America's inability to receive payment from the Chinese when they duplicate U.S. designs and patents allows them to create "a huge current account imbalance" and to "amass enormous economic" and eventually military, power.