Has anyone yet noticed that John Kerry's entire foreign policy platform seems to have collapsed before he even gets a chance to put it into operation? So far, every plan Kerry has advanced has been totally rejected by the foreign nations he expects to cooperate with him. Shouldn't this bother anyone who plans to vote for John Kerry? For that matter, shouldn't this news bother John Kerry? Yet he continues to repeat his pre-failed foreign policy dictums as though, once he's sitting in the Oval Office, all the foreign leaders currently telling him to get lost will begin asking what they can do to help. It's hard to understand that kind of hubris, and should be harder still to support it... especially while accusing President Bush of being arrogant towards the other countries he is actually working with.

Kerry's entire Iraq policy is centered on getting more of our "traditional allies" -- meaning France and Germany -- to send troops there. Although he and other Democrats daily label Iraq a mess, a quagmire, the "wrong war" and a mistake, Kerry has always blithely assumed that other countries were eager to send troops to take the place of American soldiers, so they could go home. The only reason they haven't, apparently, is that President Bush didn't say the secret word to make the duck drop down. The problem is that the nations Kerry is counting on to send troops have absolutely no intention of sending them under any circumstances. Kerry has said that his goal is to "replace most U.S. troops in Iraq with foreign forces within his first term." Yet according to the LA Times in August 2004, the "French and German governments have made [it] clear that sending troops is out of the question." Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Andrei Denisov, also ruled out a military deployment in Iraq. "We are not going to send anybody there, and that's all there is to say." Yet Kerry blindly continues to insist that he'll be able to gain their cooperation. During the first presidential debate with President Bush, he stated that he will "bring the allies back to the table." News flash: there is no table, Senator Kerry. The allies you want aren't coming. You've been stood up. 

It's a sure bet that he won't be able to get any cooperation from the real allies we actually have in Iraq, after he stated that the US needed to join with other countries "not in some trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted, but in a genuine coalition." As a result of this disrespect as well as Kerry's slight of Poland during the first presidential debate, Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski said, "It is unfortunate that a senator with 20-year experience doesn’t notice the Polish investment. It’s immoral." Kwasniewski added that he was "disappointed that our stance and the sacrifice of those soldiers are so marginalised," and opined that Kerry "thinks higher of a coalition that would include France and Germany together with the USA." Poland's premier Marek Belka said that Kerry "forgets that next to the American troops in Iraq are the British, the Australians, Poles, and also around 30 other countries that sent troops for stabilizing purposes, so it is surely a very broad coalition." Why do our true allies have to defend themselves against John Kerry?

In the same neighborhood, Iran is aggressively pursuing its nuclear program. Iran's leaders have openly declared their intention to join the "nuclear club," the name for the nations that have built nuclear weapons. "We want Iran to be recognized as a member of the nuclear club, that means Iran be recognized as a country having the nuclear fuel cycle, and enriching uranium. This is very difficult for the world to accept," said secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security Hassan Rohani in March 2004. Despite this, John Kerry seems to harbor a forlorn hope that they're just bluffing. Kerry's plan is to "offer Iran the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes," then wait and see whether they use it to build bombs. Unfortunately for John Kerry (but fortunately for nearly everyone else), Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi rejected his plan. "We have the technology (to make nuclear fuel) and there is no need for us to beg from others." Does Kerry understand that his Master Plan for stopping Iran from building nuclear weapons by giving them the means to do so has already failed? This should be no surprise -- it's the exact same plan President Clinton used to stop North Korea from building nukes in 1994... a plan that failed almost immediately, as the North Koreans simply began enriching uranium instead of using plutonium for their weapons. Where there's a will, there's a way... which is why those with the clear intent to build illegal weapons must be stopped, not appeased.

Speaking of North Korea, Kerry's plan to augment the six-way multilateral talks with unilateral talks has also already drawn fire. The "direct bilateral talks" Kerry proposes would exclude the countries that have worked so hard to bring North Korea to the table, and with the most stake in North Korea's cooperation. China, in particular, did not respond well to Kerry's plan to appease Kim Jong Il by excluding them. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the "entire international community" agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with North Korea's nuclear proliferation. So is John Kerry planning to go against the "entire international community" and deal with foreign nations in a unilateral fashion, after the Democrats have spent nearly two years (so far) complaining that President Bush went against the entire international community to deal with foreign nations in a unilateral fashion (a word that apparently means "with only 45 allies instead of 46")?

France, Germany, Russia and Iran have already rejected Kerry’s proposed Middle East foreign policies. His proposed North Korea policy has already been rejected by China. No one seems to be asking Kerry what "plan B" is, or whether he even has one. Maybe there's no need to do so... it seems clear from most of his campaign rhetoric that his fallback position is to go to the UN and call for summits. "I have a plan to have a summit with all of the allies," Kerry said in the first presidential debate with President Bush. While Kerry is meeting with diplomats, what does he think our enemies will be doing?

Perhaps they'll be busy holding summits of their own, like the "terror summit" held at Kuala Lumpur in 2000 to finalise the 9/11 attack plans. This time, however, probable members of the Saddam Fedayeen like Ahmed Hikmat Shakir won't be able to attend. Their boss is out of business.