Randy Scheunemann: How Mccain Sees The World.(The Last Word)(Interview)

Byline: Adam B. Kushner

McCain recognizes there are certain people in the world whom you can't use any word other than evil to describe.

GOP presidential hopeful John Mccain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann has a history as an advocate for democracy promotion. An early supporter of the Iraq War, he also lobbied Washington (for a time even while working for McCain) on behalf of the Republic of Georgia. He talked with NEWSWEEK's Adam B. Kushner at last week's Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., about Russia, Iran and Jet-Skiing with Mikheil Saakashvili. Excerpts:

KUSHNER: Does McCain divide the world into good and evil?

SCHEUNEMANN: He believes deeply that America is a force for good, and he recognizes there are certain people in the world who send children off to be suicide bombers or repress their citizens viciously whom you can't use any word other than evil to describe. On the larger question--does he see the world in black and white, in dividing lines?--absolutely not.

The senator likes heroes and heroic struggles. Does he see Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, that way?

What he sees in Georgia is that there's an aggressor and there's a victim. The aggressor is an authoritarian state that has long subverted the sovereignty of many of its neighbors, not just Georgia. And the victim is a democracy struggling to move its country forward, seeking a closer relationship with the West.