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The reality is that America is facing a greater existential threat at this moment in its history than at any time since British troops captured New York City in August 1776. America has no worse enemies among the assembled governments of the world than those in Tehran and Pyongyang. Now is not the time to empower North Korea by abandoning the six-nation diplomatic effort and making it a case of ''us against them.'' Neither is it the time to offer to give the mad mullahs in Tehran more nuclear material in exchange for only a promise. It didn't work when Clinton tried it with Pyongyang in 1994, either.
And now is definitely not the time to let the United Nations, France, Germany and Russia decide what is in America's best strategic interests.
Or John Kerry.
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Support for Bush overwhelming
Support for Bush overwhelming at Marine Corps base
FORWARD OPERATING BASE KALSU, Iraq -- It is a measure of President Bush's unassailable popularity among the US Marines on this base that the only one who admitted that he supported John F. Kerry would say so only on condition of anonymity.
With that exception, Marines freely boast that the Corps is Bush country.
''I think 'W' is the man,'' said First Lieutenant Andrew Thomas, 25, who still has not signed up to get his absentee ballot at Forward Operating Base Kalsu, an hour's drive south of Baghdad.
But Thomas said he had told one of his fellow Marines to remove a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper sticker pasted on a Humvee on the base. ''We all want him to win, but that's wrong,'' Thomas said. ''The sticker's got to go.''
The ease with which on-duty enlisted Marines discussed politics, and the near-uniformity of their views, exemplified the extent to which the military vote has become Republican since the draft was eliminated in 1973.
Studies that track political attitudes in the military indicate that the officer corps has historically been far more Republican than the general population at large, and that gap has grown in the last two decades.
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More Marines for Bush
More Marines for Bush
Military officers since the Vietnam War have perceived the Republican Party as more in tune with their values and interests, Kohn said, and many exhibited a ''visceral, personal dislike for Bill Clinton.''
In the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, headquartered at Base Kalsu, the enlisted ranks appear to be following the same trend.
''It's the military; people are going to vote for Bush,'' said Lance Corporal Rick McClusey, 19, who said he seeks out political debate with fellow Marines.
An avowed Republican, McClusey said he avidly reads the books he receives in the mail every month from the Conservative Book Club. The last one he read was ''The Official Handbook of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy'' by Mark W. Smith.
He was the first in the unit to sign up for an absentee ballot, with Captain Leigh Dubie, a 20-year Marine veteran who serves as the voting officer at the base. Marines and soldiers on the base give Dubie absentee ballot forms, and she helps anyone who needs to register to vote or get their ballot on time.
About 200 people on a base of about 2,000 have voted so far, she said, but that number only includes military personnel who did not organize their own absentee ballots.
''This is the first year that people are jumping at the gun to vote,'' Dubie said.
Before the 24th Marines deployed to Iraq in July, Dubie tried to get people to fill out ballot paperwork so they would not have to worry about it under the stress of combat.
''I told them if you want a voice in how the military is going to be in the future, this is your chance,'' she said.
Asked whether she expected Kerry to have any support, Dubie laughed.
''We crack jokes about that,'' she said. ''People say, 'We want to make sure we even have a military in four years, so we better vote for Bush.' ''
McClusey -- the first in the unit to request his absentee ballot from Dubie -- said the nearly-uniform support he had encountered for Bush over Kerry did not translate into unanimous support for the invasion of Iraq.
''Even if the decision to come here was questionable, at least he had the guts to come over here,'' he said.
Adding that ''I know I sound like a medieval conservative,'' McClusey said he had only met one Democrat during his nearly 16 months in the Marines.
Standing near him in the operations center, Jamie Tyson, a 35-year-old Marine, interrupted. ''I voted for Clinton twice,'' he said. Tyson, who described himself as an independent, also said he had voted for both Bushes and plans to vote for the president's reelection this year. ''I picked the winner every time,'' he said.
Of Bush, he added, ''People may question his strategy, but no one questions his commitment to the military as a whole.''
By Jarhead Republician Semper
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Iran likes Kerrysupply nuke fuel
COUNTDOWN TO ELECTION DAY
Iran likes Kerry deal
to supply nuke fuel
Islamic Republic to review 'great bargain'
but will still pursue its 'legitimate right'
Tehran would welcome John Kerry's proposal to supply nuclear fuel, Hossein Musavian, the head Iran's Supreme National Security Council's foreign policy committee, announced today.
First outlined in a June speech, Kerry's plan to provide Iran with nuclear fuel in exchange for a pledge to use it for peaceful purposes only was unveiled to the American public during the first presidential debate.
''I think the United States should have offered the opportunity to provide the nuclear fuel, test them, see whether or not they were actually looking for it for peaceful purposes,'' Kerry said in a critique of the Bush administration's handling of Tehran's nuclear program, which the Iranians claim is only for civilian purposes.
''If they weren't willing to work a deal, then we could have put sanctions together,'' Kerry said of Tehran. ''The president did nothing.''
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Initially, Iran rejected the idea, saying that reliance on foreign supplies would jeopardize its nuclear program.
Musavian told Reuters that Kerry's offer was also dismissed because officials could not tell if it was genuine or merely rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign. ''If it is part of Kerry's election campaign ... we do not want to be part of it,'' he said. ''Let the Americans play their game themselves.''
But, now, the Iranians have changed their tune. Musavian says the Islamic Republic would welcome what Kerry running mate John Edwards has described as a ''great bargain,'' and the proposal will be reviewed. Iran, however, should be allowed to pursue its ''peaceful nuclear program,'' he made clear.
''Iran welcomes any constructive proposal from any American candidate,'' Musavian told Reuters. But ''our legitimate right of pursuing peaceful nuclear technology should be considered,'' he said.
Musavian blames a history of ''hostile'' U.S. policies toward Iran, going back to the Reagan era, for his refusal to engage in direct talks on the nuclear issue with Washington. ''It is because of 20 years of mistrust ... Up to now, Americans have not shown any sign of good will,'' he charged.
Edwards told the Washington Post in August that if Iran failed to take Kerry's ''great bargain,'' it would be confirmation that the country is building nuclear weapons under the cover of developing a peaceful source of power.
WorldNetDaily has previously reported that Tehran is already engaged in an ambitious program to develop nuclear weapons to compliment its recently attained ballistic missile capabilities. According to the latest intelligence reports, Iran has decided at the highest levels of government to produce a bomb within the next four months.
Edwards assures that if Tehran accepted the proposal and subsequently cheated, Kerry could be counted upon to pull together a coalition of European allies to impose sanctions. ''If we are engaging with Iranians in an effort to reach this great bargain and if, in fact, this is a bluff that they are trying to develop nuclear weapons capability, then we know that our European friends will stand with us,'' Edwards said.
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