In new role, Kerry back in Vietnam's Mekong Delta

[karynnj]

23. Agree, but the article makes one really big error - saying this is the first time Kerry was back

since 1969.

This is a big error as it completely misses a huge Kerry effort - and accomplishment. Kerry led the POW/MIA effort. This is an effort that Kerry took on against the advise of his entire staff. It was considered no win and they understood how emotionally hard it would be for Kerry. He accepted it because he thought it was the right thing to do to honor those who fought. The best description I read in 2004 was actually from a book McCain wrote on his Senate years.

McCain spoke of three difficult things that Kerry did that made the effort which all CW thought doomed from the beginning a success. McCain described how Kerry used his history to push Vietnam to agreeing to let them them go anywhere unannounced. He also managed a group of Senators, including Smith (NH), McCain and Kerrey - all known potential loose cannons - and led them through a process designed to look at everything, allow no leaks and result in a unanimous conclusion. The third thing - that might have been the hardest - is that he kept McCain from exploding several times. (The latter was important not just for McCain, but for any reconciliation effort in Congress where "getting" McCain was important.) Had this failed, there would have been no reconciliation in 1996. As it was, Clinton, needed Kerry and McCain and many other Congressional veterans to narrowly get approval.

This omission is more significant, given that the response from certain foreign policy pundits to Kerry's successes in at least getting diplomatic talks in Israel and Iran and being instrumental in getting Syria to give up chemical weapons, is that he has neglected the "pivot to Asia". (Here's an example - http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/12/did-obama-forget-about-asia-101139.html ) The basis of this seems to really be a stupid need of some pundits to consider praise for Kerry or Clinton as a zero sum game. I NEVER saw this with Albright and Christopher or Powell and Rice. It has no basis in logic.

Not to mention, these pundits have faulted Kerry for going to Europe first - while Hillary went to Asia first. They ignore that Kerry actually handled a difficult NK flare up very deftly working with China AND that Hillary's initial Asia trip was inconsequential and somewhat awkward. It ignores that Kerry chaired the SFRC committee for Asia early in his Senate career and he was chair of the entire committee for 4 years. In those years, he actually developed relationships most of those countries - including China. He also had been the only Congressional representative at the Bali environmental conference in 2007. Surprisingly, the Bush administration delegation thanked him at a SFRC hearing for the work that he did there and ahead of time that was helpful to them.

In fact, though long before the "pivot", Kerry's work on Vietnam and his work in the Philippines for democratic reform and free elections - that helped them oust Marcos (who the Reagan administration and earlier administrations supported.) - may have given any "pivot" a more solid foundation. (Senator Lugar's book described the work of the committee, but here is part of a 2004 WP summary - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13930-2004Jul25_3.html )

In fact, I personally don't think the US has the choice to choose where its foreign policy should focus. Ignoring that the pivot to Asia seems to have been mostly focused on TPP, which itself is controversial, we can't ignore the inflamed Middle East where instability, often rooted in our past actions and those of the colonial powers before that, threatens the world. If Obama manages to cool even some of those wars, he leaves his successor a more peaceful world.