Keith Devens .com

Kerry's foreign policy disintegrates even before he gets into office (not that he's going to)

What are three of the major foreign policy initiatives Kerry mentioned in the debate on Thursday?

Get our "allies" (read: France and Germany) to help us
Give Iran nuclear fuel (!!!)
Have bilateral talks with North Korea

All of those plans have pretty much fallen apart, even before Kerry gets into office (which he won't anyway...).

Germany and France have no intention of sending troops to Iraq even if Kerry is elected.
Today Iran preemptively rebuffed Kerry's plan to give them nuclear fuel
And China, one of our allies in dealing with North Korea, has stated that "the 'entire international community' agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with the problem", and China's foreign minister called the six-way talks "the only feasible and correct option".

These things illustrates the folly of having your foreign policy initiatives wholly depend on the decisions of others! I also think it's important in pointing out Kerry's contradiction in wanting multilateral support except in dealing with North Korea.

Some links via Jeff Harrell.

Update: Heh: "You know, it’s never a good sign when a couple of your major policy proposals blow up in your face before you’re elected."

Permalink | 5 Comments | Tags: Opinions/Politics | id 5672

21:29 (utc-4)
edited: 2004-10-04 00:54 (utc-4)

Comments

Just because Bush is a failure at a task, that doesn't mean Kerry will be too. ... There are plenty of place where Kerry can foster relationships to get other countries troops into Iraq.

Um, did you not read my post and the links? I assume you're just talking about France and Germany. If not... then what countries are you referring to?

You know, you're not listening to what Kerry says. Or, probably more likely, you do not want to listen.

Let's take just your first point:

1. Get our "allies" (read: France and Germany) to help us

In your writing you're twisting the viewpoint of Kerry as to meaning that Kerry wants to get Germany and France in on the CURRENT conditions. And that's not what he means.

I'm not saying you're dense for not noticing what Kerry means, but probably rather that you have your republican goggles on, so that you kind of WANT Kerry's statements to not make sense.

Anyway, what Kerry means is that he wants to change the CONDITIONS for how America can get help from Europe. The current US conditions are "We're moving in! Europe: Either you're with us or you're against us!". So, America has been wanting to get European help only on American premises.

Kerry says this has got to change if the US wants any help from Europe. And THAT's what he's talking about.

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Sunday, October 3, 2004

Kerry's foreign policy disintegrates even before he gets into office (not that he's going to)

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