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Matt Bai tries to articulate the Kerry strategy against terror in the New York Times Magazine. Kerry, he thinks, was one of the first political leaders to realize that war as we formerly knew it is obsolete. Bai believes Kerry's experience with law-enforcement issues in the Senate alerted him to a new kind of threat that was grounded in neither formal state aggression or normal criminal groups.  Through his immersion in the global underground, Kerry made connections among disparate criminal and terrorist groups that few other senators interested in foreign policy were making in the 90's. Richard A. Clarke, who...

On September 6, 2002, John Kerry in an op-ed in The New York Times stated that “I refuse ever to accept the notion that anything I`ve suggested with respect to Iraq was nuanced. It was clear. It was precise. It was, in fact, prescient. It was ahead of the curve about what the difficulties were. And that is precisely what a president is supposed to be. I think I was right, 100% correct, about how you should have done Iraq.” A sampling of his prescient remarks: 1990 “Iraq has developed a chemical weapons capability, and is pursuing a nuclear weapons...

In an interview with Matt Bai published in today’s New York Times Magazine, Kerry made a very, very, very significant statement about how he would fight the war on terror. Kerry compared the war on terrorism with eradicating prostitution or illegal gambling. ''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it...

In last Thursday's debate, the two presidential candidates were asked what represented "the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States." To most observers, the Democratic and Republican contenders seemed to agree: the spread of nuclear weapons. Not so Fast The seeming agreement on that point masked, however, some fundamental differences between Senator John Kerry and President Bush on the question of nuclear weapons and their proliferation - particularly into the hands of terrorists. If this danger is indeed our most serious threat, the American people had better understand the full significance of the choice for...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran would welcome a proposal by U.S. presidential candidate Senator John Kerry's running mate for a "great bargain" to solve the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday. Vice presidential candidate Senator John Edwards has said that Kerry, a Democrat, would be willing to supply Iran with nuclear fuel for power generation if Tehran abandons its own fuel-making capability - if Iran did not accept this offer, it would confirm Iran wanted to make an atom bomb. Iran earlier rejected the proposal, saying it would be "irrational" for Iran to jeopardize what...

John Kerry's Statement on Iraq Before the War TEXT FROM THE SPEECH JOHN KERRY MADE ON THE SENATE FLOOR October 9, 2002

You know, folks, I tell you, I was on the airplane last night and I was coming back. I'm going back and forth between the baseball game and some of this other stuff. I was in Houston yesterday, and I'm watching this report that Duelfer gave us. It is one of the most destructive reports to the whole Kerry foreign policy I have heard yet. It totally repudiates the entire Kerry foreign policy -- and yet the media, because they've got a "gotcha," focuses on weapons of mass destruction, which we already knew. There weren't any weapons of mass destruction,...

Congratulations to actor Ron Silver for his clear analysis on MSNBC after second debate tonight. He said that Kerry always says he would do a better job creating and leading an international alliance to confront threats like Saddam. But in 1991 when Saddam's troops were in Kuwait, President Bush's father formed a coaliton that included France, Germany, and a final UN Security Council resolution endorsing the use of force. But Kerry still voted NO on January 12, 1991 when he was asked to support the UN authorization and send US troops to Kuwait. If Kerry could not even confront Saddam...

Who Grades John Kerry's Global Test?By Joe MarianiOctober 7, 2004 "No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America. But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons." - John Kerry, 30 September 2004 According to John...

"Regarding Iran, President Bush's combination of sanctions, multilateral diplomatic pressure and military options is far superior to Kerry's trust and wait approach. Bush supports missile defense, retaining forces in Iraq to pose a credible conventional threat, updating our nuclear deterrent to defeat countermeasures used by Iran and North Korea – largely burying bunkers and weapons of mass destruction underground – and selling bombs to Israel that could be used in a strike against Iran's nuclear apparatus. Kerry has supported none of these. He instead offered to give nuclear fuel to Iran and wait to see what they do with it,...

October 8, 2004 -- The national media are busy trumpet ing the news that the chief U.S. weapons inspector, Charles Duel fer, found no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Which is hardly news, right? But there is news — real news — in Duelfer's 1,200-page report. It tells the tale of how Saddam Hussein, clinging to power, enlisted top U.N. officials to help him bribe leaders of those European nations so dear to John Kerry's heart into ending tough economic sanctions against Iraq. Whereupon Saddam planned to resume his decades-long quest for WMDs. And he almost succeeded....

In his strongest statement yet, the Democratic presidential nominee suggested that if Bush fails to recognize the severity of problems in Iraq, then if Kerry takes office in January he will face a situation as chaotic as the Middle East in the early 1980s. "If the president just does more of the same every day and it continues to deteriorate, I may be handed Lebanon, figuratively speaking," Kerry told reporters at a brief news conference.

Although everybody's talking about weapons of mass destruction, the story that's not being reported --you'd almost think the press "wants Kerry to win"-- is the complete collapse of John Kerry's foreign policy case, and the reason for that collapse. The ISG, who confirmed last autumn that they had found no WMD, last night presented detailed findings from interviews with Iraqi officials and documents laying out his plans to bribe foreign businessmen and politicians.

THE CONTRAST could not be clearer. One side proposed a war and waged it. Yes, President Bush has been slow to correct mistakes made in the course of the war -- not that Vice President Dick Cheney would admit as much in Tuesday's debate in Ohio. Still, the administration has shown the resolve to win the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. Cheney was right to assert that voters should know that re-electing this ticket is the only way they can be sure America won't cut and run. The other side voted to authorize the war, then was...

One of John Kerry's claims to the White House is that his diplomacy would better control nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea than President Bush's alleged truculence. So it is newsworthy that a spokesman for Tehran's Foreign Ministry has just dismissed out of hand the centerpiece of Mr. Kerry's arms-control offer to the mullahs. Senator Kerry has promised to provide a steady supply of nuclear fuel to Iran if it will dismantle its own atomic-fuel-making capability. But the New York Sun reports that Tehran spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi sniffed at the idea on the weekend, calling it "irrational" because...

"We have a plan for Iraq. . . . We have a plan for success. . . . We have to do better. We have a plan. . . . We have plans on both of those subjects. . . . John Kerry and I have a plan to do something about it. . . . We have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the system that don't belong there. . . . We think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system out, but we also do what they haven't done. . . . We have a serious health care plan. . . . We have a clear...

All along the campaign trail Kerry and Edwards have complained about the "$200 billion" being spent in Iraq. Kerry and Edwards have also complained that the Bush administration "took its eye off the ball in Afghanistan and the hunt for Bin Laden by going to Iraq". In the debate last night, VP Cheney slapped down Edwards' allegation that the US was spending $200 billion in Iraq by pointing out that the $187 billion appropriation (I'm sure everyone remembers this one - its the one that Kerry vote for, before he voted against it) included $60 billion to fund our efforts...

One reason for the Dems' glee over the President's not-so-perfect performance in last week's debate is that few are paying much attention to some of the amazing nonsense that came out of his opponent. None of us can underestimate Vichy John Kerry's capacity for flip-flopping. In the debate, he seemed to reverse himself on one of the most important issues now facing America: preemption of terrorist attacks. But if you read what he said, it's no flip-flop at all: Kerry still doesn't agree that America can preempt terrorist attacks without asking "mother, may I" of Kofi, Jacques, and Gerhard. Way...

WILKES BARRE, Pa. -- President Bush, in biting criticism of his Democratic challenger, said today that Sen. John Kerry has "a strategy of defeat" for Iraq and an economic program that would imperil America at home. Bush addressed hundreds of applauding supporters on his 38th trip to the swing state of Pennsylvania as he worked to overcome last week's shaky debate performance and new controversy over the White House's handling of the war in Iraq. Of Kerry, Bush said, "My opponent's endless back-and-forth on Iraq is part of a larger misunderstanding. In the war on terror, Senator Kerry is proposing...

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry conceded yesterday that he probably will not be able to convince France and Germany to contribute troops to Iraq if he is elected president. The Massachusetts senator has made broadening the coalition trying to stabilize Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign, but at a town hall meeting yesterday, he said he knows other countries won't trade their soldiers' lives for those of U.S. troops. "Does that mean allies are going to trade their young for our young in body bags? I know they are not. I know that," he said. Asked about that statement...