Building a Coalition?

There's what Kerry says and then there's what Kerry does. John Kerry talks about building better coalitions, but his actions don't support this goal.

A week ago Iraqi prime minister Allawi spoke to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. Rather than attending this historic event and welcoming Allawi, Kerry chose to stay on the campaign trail and attack Allawi's credibility. Politically expedient, but very damaging were he to become the next U.S. president.

Germany and France are saying they will not send troops even if Kerry is elected.

And Kerry's sister is in Australia attempting to undermine our coalition in Iraq.

So, Kerry needs to apologize to Allawi and the Iraqis as well as the Australians and then explain how he's going to get other nations (i.e. France & Germany, etc.) to join in the effort. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was laughing earlier this week when interviewed about having to attend a summit under Kerry's leadership saying there was no chance of German troops being committed to Iraq.

I believe that Bush has built the best possible coalition given the circumstances. Is it "ideal"? No, but Kerry certainly wouldn't do any better and seems bent on tearing down the existing coalition, even referring to these nations as a "trumped-up, so-called coalition of the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted".

UPDATE: Captain Ed points out a BBC article regarding talks with North Korea. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing described the multilateral talks as the "only feasible and correct option". During tonight's debate Kerry attacked Bush's coalition effort in dealing with North Korea. Kerry would prefer to hold bilateral talks (read: appeasement) with North Korea rather than use China's leverage to push for a solution.