With Barack Obama embroiled in major controversies over his recent terrorism speech and no-nukes remarks, we thought it would be illuminating to speak to one of his top foreign policy advisers.

And it was.

Greg Craig, a former State Department official under Clinton and now a top foreign policy adviser to Obama, spoke to us at some length, and in the interview, he clarified some of Obama's recent comments.

For instance, the Wedneday speech where Obama said he'd chase down terrorists in Pakistan without government approval has been somewhat misinterpreted, Craig said.

He said it shouldn't be viewed as a threat to Pakistan or proposing an "invasion" of the country, as rival campaigns and others have suggested. Instead it was meant to be a rebuke of President Bush's policies.

And he marveled at why Hillary Clinton chose to chastise Obama over his no-nukes comments when they were "absolutely" and "self-evidently" correct.

"There is not a military planner in the world that would say you should use nuclear weapons against non-state actors," Craig told Election Central. "When you have conventional weapons and they're suited to the task, why introduce that into the equation?"

More from Craig after the jump.

Asked to expand on Obama's no-nukes comment, Craig agreed with Clinton that presidents must be careful about statements on the use of nuclear weapons because it is imperative to maintain ambiguity about U.S. policy.

He added, however, that Obama's statement was a "negative assurance," because it didn't say when we would use nukes but a specific situation when we would not, which can be a useful diplomatic tool to indicate responsible stewardship, he said.

"It's an issue where Sen. Obama is self-evidently correct," Craig said. "So I'm a little surprised that she would turn this into a debate."

Craig, was one of four or five people consulted for the major anti-terror speech, which he also clarified at some length in our interview.

First, he said that it was flat out wrong to assume that it was in any way a response to the disagreement with Clinton at the debate. Rather, he said, it was solely intended as a rebuke of Bush administration policies. He said the speech had been in the works well before the debate.

Craig said the speech does not indicate, as some (particularly conservatives) have argued, that an Obama Administration would be less cautious about a potential strike than the Bush Administration.

Obama said in the speech that it was a mistake not to have launched a strike at the 2005 meeting attended by Al-Qaeda operations chief Ayman al-Zawahri, a move rejected by Donald Rumsfeld because too large a force was required. However, Obama was only saying it was a mistake to have missed the opportunity altogether given the unusually good intelligence.

"Senator Obama believes in a lighter footprint too," Craig said. "That's why the word invasion in connection with his speech is inaccurate. That's not what he's talking about."

Asked to respond to Pakistan's charge that Obama had used the threat of force without Pakistan's approval to score political points in the 2008 campaign, Craig disputed the premise, saying that Obama would seek to work with the country first.

"No one is saying that you should disregard Pakistan's sovereignty," Craig added. "And to portray Sen. Obama's speech on terrorism as not respecting Pakistan's sovereignty is an inaccurate representation of that speech."