Kaus’s argument is superficially true. However, Kerry is not talking about a pause. He is talking about withdrawal from an “unjust war.” He, and Kaus, suffers from the illusion that radical Islam is about leftwing notions of poverty and injustice instead of a worldview inimical to western values. Why else would supporters of homosexuality, abortion and the emancipation of women find such affinity with the Islamic radicals in the Middle East and so little with Israel? I would argue that leftwing romanticism about “revolution” against the “bourgeois” order makes anti-Western Islamic radicalism a psychologically irresistible vision to Kerry. Isn’t it ironic that a champion of multiculturalism like Kerry cannot understand that other cultures do not see the world through the same Marxist inspired glasses?