If elected president, John F. Kerry would move to increase the US military by 40,000 troops. He would send more soldiers to Iraq if commanders said they were needed. He would stay in Iraq as long as it took to get the job done.
Those are the policies that Kerry's inner circle of foreign policy advisers must work with every Monday at lunchtime when they meet to discuss ways to take the Democratic candidate's ideas to the American public.
Their main goal: ''To show that we can protect America better than George Bush," said Rand Beers, Kerry's chief national security adviser. . . .
Kerry's success may hinge on whether voters are convinced that his ability to forge ties with allies can make America safer than President Bush's more unilateral approach. Lately, the differences between the candidates have sometimes been hard to detect.
Will this strategy work for Kerry? I would think that an approach that is similar in many ways to Bush's would make many voters of the Deaniac base shy away from Kerry while making many on-the-fencers from the right wonder why they wouldn't just vote for Bush.