The Last Word: John Edwards--'Real Moral Leadership'.(Interview)

Byline: Malcolm Beith

Republican opposition killed the proposed takeover of some American port facilities by a Dubai company, but congressional Democrats were the first to fan the flames of the controversy. Eager to capitalize on President George W. Bush's weakness in the polls, and with midterm elections looming later in the year, opposition-party members were clearly looking to regain some ground on national security. Former senator John Edwards, a vice presidential candidate in 2004, has similarly been laying the groundwork for a future run at the presidency by trying to bolster his foreign-policy credentials, most recently by co-chairing a Council on Foreign Relations task force examining U.S.-Russian relations. NEWSWEEK's Malcolm Beith spoke with Edwards about the Democrats, Dubai and Russia's bid to end the Iranian nuclear crisis. Excerpts:

Beith: Where do you stand on the ports deal? Edwards: We shouldn't discriminate against any country, certainly not against an Arab country. The United Arab Emirates have done some really good things. [But] when it comes to the operation of our ports, I think American companies should be doing that. I don't think it should be British companies, or U.A.E. companies--I think we should be doing it. A lot of our ports are being operated right now by companies from other countries. I would not cancel those contracts or attempt to stop them, but as they expire... We should be doing this ourselves just because there's so much at stake. I also think simultaneously we need to be doing much better in terms of providing security in our ports. We're only inspecting about 5 percent of containers. We've got to have a goal of screening 100 percent of those containers.

With the congressional elections coming up later this year, how do you rate the Democrats' chances? I think we're going to do well in 2006. It's critical for us to hold Bush and the congressional Republican leadership accountable for all their failures. I think there are so many examples of incompetence in this administration, it's amazing: the management of the war in Iraq, the response to the hurricane, efforts to implement the Medicare prescription-drug bill... the list goes on and on and on.

But talking about what they're doing wrong is not enough. We also have to lay out our positive vision for the country so that it's clear to the American people what we would do. That's across a whole range of issues, [such as] poverty in America [and] absence of health-care coverage, and show that we're going to lead on the big moral issues that face the world. Not just the war ...