not enough realpolitik. Your analysis, in my opinion, relies too much on linguistics. And that isn't the mainspring of how the world moves. If you took a Marxist perspective that would be a step closer to the mainspring. The fact is, that if you continually betray your commitments to your allies, eventually, you will have no allies.

And how can you focus on Al Qaeda's difficulty in acquiring nuclear weapons and ignore Iran's ease in doing so?

His meaning about the transcendence of the terrorist issue is that it is unique in world history, where a seemingly disorganized and mostly invisible military operation can make a significant and possibly victorious fight against a western culture vastly superior in military technology.

Are you saying that the UN and NATO are effective organizations? The UN is the most corrupt organization on the planet. Or that countries such as India and Brazil should not be recognized for their economic contributions in the world, ahead of kleptocracies like Russia? The idea of the League of Democracies is the first concrete proposal we've heard from any of the candidates, and it seems like a good idea--if you acknowledge the ineffectiveness and corruption of the present world bodies.

Surely you can't be envisioning a foreign policy that will not antagonize any other nation? Or that no other nation could possibly do anything to antagonize the US? Is that the case? Is such a scenario possible? Tell me how, please describe this.

And, in your view, does morality come into play in foreign policy at all? If so, where and when? And what do you do about policies of other countries that are an affront to your own sense of morality? Clearly the US has affronted your sense of morality, as you speak of Iraq. But why is your sense any more grounded than McCain's?

There may be ways to critique McCain, but that essay wasn't one of those ways.