When all is said and done, the IWR vote was the worst thing could have ever happened to Kerry. He spent the whole campaign recovering from being flanked on the left - something I'm sure he never believed possible. He spent months (too) indirectly apologizing for the vote, it set the stage for his perception as wanting things "both ways", and made him distrust his own political instincts.
But whatever the problems with his 2004 candidacy, he was far and above the most brilliant thinker on foreign policy out there - a true visionary. I know words like "visionary" are tossed around lightly for whomever people happen to support, but I think the words I am about to submit make the case.
The following is excerpted from Kerry's key foreign policy speech at Georgetown. Nothing he is proposing is politically impossible, such as a Department of Peace, but it is the most leftist position you will ever see from a politically viable candidate - and that includes Dean, Gore, Clark, and the rest.
He gets it all right on the money: getting to the economic roots of terrorism and promoting pan-Arab trade, working as "agents of hope" in the Middle East, bolstering Muslim moderates, demanding transparency and legal protections, fair Mid-East negotiations without unilateral concessions, securing nuclear materials, and on and on. He even uses Chomsky's phrase "drain the swamp of terrorism."
I know this is long, but it is worth it, if only to get a sense of what the right President could accomplish.
Read his words and dream about what might have been. Or what could be.
We face a renewed choice: between isolation in a perilous world - which I believe is impossible in any event - and engagement to shape a safer world which is the urgent imperative of our time.
A choice between those who think you can build walls to keep the world out, and those who want to tear down the barriers that separate "us" from "them." Between those who want America to go it alone, and those who want America to lead the world toward freedom.
A bold, progressive internationalism focuses not just on the immediate and the imminent but insidious dangers that can mount over the next years and decades, dangers that span the spectrum from the denial of democracy, to destructive weapons, endemic poverty and epidemic disease.
These are, in the truest sense, not just issues of international order and security, but vital issues of our own national security.
While we must remain determined to defeat terrorism, it isn't only terrorism we are fighting. It's the beliefs that motivate terrorists.
It's critical that we recognize the conditions that are breeding this virulent new form of anti-American terrorism. If you look at the western Muslim world what you see is a civilization under extraordinary stress.
These countries are among the most economically isolated in the world, with very little trade apart from the oil royalties which flow to those at the very top.
Since 1980, the share of world trade held by the 57 member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference has fallen from 15% to just 4%.
The same countries attracted only $13.6 billion worth of foreign direct investment in 2001. That is just $600 million - only about 5% more than Sweden, which has only 9 million people compared to 1.3 billion people.
In 1969, the GDP of South Korea and Egypt were almost identical. Today, South Korea boasts one of the 20 largest economies in the world while Egypt's remains economically frozen almost exactly where it was thirty years before.
A combination of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education and opportunity, and rapid population growth has proven simply explosive. The streets are full of young people who have no jobs, no prospects, no voice.
State-controlled media encourage a culture of self-pity, victimhood and blame-shifting. This is the breeding ground for present and future hostility to the West and our values.
From this perspective, it's clear that we need more than a one-dimensional war on terror.
We must drain the swamps of terrorists; but you don't have a prayer of doing so if you leave the poisoned sources to gather and flow again. That means we must help the vast majority people of the greater Middle East build a better future.
We need to illuminate an alternative path to a futile Jihad against the world...a path that leads to deeper integration of the greater Middle East into the modern world order.
The Bush Administration has a plan for waging war but no plan for winning the peace. It has invested mightily in the tools of destruction but meagerly in the tools of peaceful construction. It offers the peoples in the greater Middle East retribution and war but little hope for liberty and prosperity.
The U.S. must look beyond stability alone as the linchpin of our relationships. We must place increased focus on the development of democratic values and human rights as the keys to long-term security.
We must side with and strengthen the aspirations of those seeking positive change. America needs to be on the side of the people, not the regimes that keep them down.
We as Americans must be agents of hope as well as enemies of terrorism. We must help bring modernity to the greater Middle East. We must make significant investments in the education and human infrastructure in developing countries.
Simple measures like buying books and family planning can expose, rebut, isolate and defeat the apostles of hate so that children are no longer brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and terrorists are deprived the ideological breeding grounds.
I believe we must reform and increase our global aid to strengthen our focus on the missions of education and health --of freedom for women -- and economic development for all.
Democracy won't come to the greater Middle East overnight, but the U.S. should start by supporting the region's democrats in their struggles against repressive regimes or by working with those which take genuine steps towards change.
We must embark on a major initiative of public diplomacy to bridge the divide between Islam and the rest of the world.
We must make avoidance of the clash of civilizations the work of our generation: Engaging in a new effort to bring to the table a new face of the Arab world -- Muslim clerics, mullahs, imams and secular leaders -- demonstrating for the entire world a peaceful religion which can play an enormous role in isolating and rebutting those practitioners who would pervert Islam's true message.
The Middle East isn't on the Bush Administration's trade agenda. We need to put it there.
The United States and its transatlantic partners should launch a high-profile Middle East trade initiative designed to stop the economic regression in the Middle East and spark investment, trade and growth in the region.
It should aim at dismantling trade barriers that are among the highest in the world, encouraging participation in world trade policy and ending the deep economic isolation of many of the region's countries.
We should build on the success of Clinton Administration's Jordan Free Trade Agreement. Since the United States reduced tariffs on goods made in "qualifying industrial zones," Jordan's exports to the US jumped from $16 to $400 million, creating about 40,000 jobs.
Let's provide similar incentives to other countries that agree to join the WTO, stop boycotting Israel and supporting Palestinian violence against Israel, and open up their economies.
We should also create a general duty-free program for the region, just as we've done in the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the Andean Trade Preference Act.
Again, we should set some conditions: full cooperation in the war on terror, anti-corruption measures, non-compliance with the Israel boycott, respect for core labor standards and progress toward human rights.
These countries suffer from too little globalization, not too much.
Without greater investment, without greater trade within the region and with the outside world, without the transparency and legal protections that modern economies need to thrive, how will these countries ever be able to grow fast enough to provide jobs and better living standards for their people?
But as we extend the benefits of globalization to people in the greater Middle East and the developing world in general, we also need to confront globalization's dark side.
We should use the leverage of capital flows and trade to lift, not lower, international labor and environmental standards. And in the Middle East especially, we need to be sensitive to fears that globalization will corrupt or completely submerge traditional cultures and mores.
Finally, we must have a new vision and a renewed engagement to reinvigorate the Mideast peace process.
Without demanding unilateral concessions, the United States must mediate a series of confidence building steps which start down the road to peace.
Both parties must walk this path together - simultaneously. And the world can help them do it.
While maintaining our long term commitment to Israel's existence and security, the United States must work to keep both sides focused on the end game of peace. Extremists must not be allowed to control this process.
American engagement and successful mediation are not only essential to peace in this war-torn area but also critical to the success of our own efforts in the war against terrorism.
Ultimately, the central challenge for the United States is to undertake and lead the most global, comprehensive effort in history to deal with proliferation generally and nuclear weapons lost or loose in a dangerous world specifically.
It is no secret that there are those lurking in the shadows eager to capitalize on a deadly market for nuclear materials held in insecure facilities around the world.
Five years ago, authorities seized a nuclear fuel rod that had been stolen from the
Congo. The security guard entrusted with protecting it had simply lent out his keys to the storage facility. Two years later, even after near disaster, the facility was guarded only by a few underpaid guards, rusty gates, and a simple padlock.
The potential consequences are fearful and undeniable.
It is time instead for the most determined, all-out effort ever initiated to secure the world's nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction.
We must marshal a great international effort to inventory and secure these materials wherever they may be and in whatever quantity.
We must create mechanisms to help those that would be responsible stewards but lack the financial and technical means to succeed.
We must establish worldwide standards for the security and safekeeping of nuclear material and define a new standard of international legitimacy, linking the stewardship of nuclear materials under universally accepted protocols to acceptance in the community of nations.
It's our challenge to look to the long term - beyond the next election to the next generation - bending the course of history, recognizing that other nations share it with us, and joining with them in resolve and hope.
We can do these things.
Note: There was some slight changes to the text, but only for the sake of clarity.
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