Kerry Promises a Kinder, Gentler Foreign Policy

Kerry's coast-to-coast victories in the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses means the 60-year-old Democratic senator from Massachusetts will be George W. Bush's opponent in the November election. But even before cementing the nomination, Kerry has been laying out a vision of international affairs that lies in stark contrast to the one pursued by President Bush and which Europeans and much of the world will probably find more to their liking.

While the Bush campaign will focus on the danger of terrorism and the president's role as commander-in-chief during the election fight, Kerry seems determined not to let the Republicans gain the advantage on security and international affairs. He has been relentless in his criticism of White House foreign policy.

"The Bush administration has run the most inept, reckless, arrogant and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country," Kerry often says on the stump.

Kerry has continued to paint a bleak picture of Bush's foreign policy and his approach to terrorism in his speeches in recent weeks and says he would take a radically different approach to fighting the danger of terrorism and ensuring America's security.

"No matter how much power we have, we cannot prevail single-handedly," he has said. "We have to work with the international community to define a global strategy that is inclusive, not exclusive, collective and not imperial."

Rebuilding bridges

Kerry says he would break with several tenets of the Bush administration, which he accuses of abandoning belief in collective security, respect for international institutions, international law and multilateral engagement.

Kerry promises a "new era of alliances" and says he would make an aggressive effort to rebuild "frayed and shredded" relationships, especially with NATO allies. He says he would call an international summit to draw up a common anti-terrorism and security agenda and pledges to return to the use of diplomacy as a tool for foreign policy and treat the UN as a "full partner."

"We will renew our alliances and we will build new alliances because they are essential to the final victory and success of a war on terror," he told supporters in one speech.

A Kerry administration would reengage the U.S. in the fight against global warming, the candidate has said, in sharp contrast to the Bush White House, which turned its back on the Kyoto protocol on climate change three years ago.

Putting the stress on dialog

Kerry, who is a both a Vietnam veteran and former anti-war protester and worked toward normalization of ties with Hanoi, says he understands the importance of dialog and diplomacy and the dangers of bullying with a big stick.

He says once in office, he will put the United Nations in charge of rebuilding Iraq and establish a "reasonable plan and specific timetable" for restoring self-government and not engage in a rush to hand back power.

In a speech last Friday in Los Angeles, Kerry vowed that if elected, he will revamp U.S. intelligence agencies and begin diplomatic efforts aimed at preventing Islamic youth from embracing radicalism.

Ties to Europe

Kerry's vision of his administration's foreign policy have been greeted with enthusiasm from many in Europe, where anti-Bush sentiment is high. The Bush administration has alienated many of its closest allies, particularly France and Germany, over the Iraq war and its dismissive attitude toward the "Old World." Though Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder recently met at the White House and publicly put their differences over Iraq behind them, relations between them cannot be described as close.

While Bush has had limited foreign travel experience -- when he was 21 he listed his only foreign travel as a vacation trip to Scotland -- Kerry attended a Swiss boarding school and when he receives envoys from Paris in Washington, he chats with them in fluent French. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, was born in Mozambique, studied in South Africa and Switzerland and is fluent in five languages herself.

"Bush has managed to offend everybody," said Ruth Oldenziel, an American history professor at the University of Amsterdam, in an interview with Dutch radio. "Kerry is well travelled, he has been to Vietnam, he's very well read, he has a sense of belonging, and has a background in Europe, so I think to Europeans he's going to be a welcome change."