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The Korensteins asked me quite a few questions.

I'll do my best to answer them with the time I have. Here is the first one:

> 1. What will be the cost to Israel of Kerry's promises to seek alliances with "allies" in the EU and UN (and Muslim world?) before taking foreign policy positions?

I disagree with the premise of your question.

Kerry has never stated that he would need allies before taking foreign policy positions. Indeed, his article in the Forward from last Friday http://forward.com/main/article.php?ref=kerry200408251051 speaks forcefully of his plans vis-ŕ-vis Israel, and while I am not privy to Kerry's conversation, I would venture to say that these positions were not vetted by Chirac or Assad!

Kerry has expressed a desire to have allies, but by no means does Kerry intend to kowtow to them. Kerry will seek allies, but when necessary, the US must act alone.

Surely Bush must have this same ambition to have allies.

For if not, why does he vaunt his "coalition of the willing" http://www.geocities.com/pwhce/willing.html which furnishes about 10% of the troops in Iraq?

You might argue that there is no difference between Bush and Kerry here.

However, even if their goals are the same, I would argue that Kerry would have an easier time achieving these goals. In fact, you could make a carbon-copy of Bush, elect HIM President, and HE would have an easier time than Bush would, provided he wasn't called "Bush".

What do I mean by that?

Suppose that sometime in the near future, the US claimed that a country (say Iran) had weapons of mass destruction. Suppose even that this time we were actually telling the truth about those weapons. Suppose further that we saw no diplomatic means of preventing those weapons from being deployed in the near future and becoming a threat to Israel. Several countries would be ready to believe the US and join forces with us against such a "hypothetical" threat, but I venture to say none of our current partners would be ready to support George W. Bush, the President who called "wolf".

As our President so aptly puts it "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

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