TheAgitator.com
Bush Adopts Obama’s “Naive” Foreign Policy
Thursday, September 11th, 2008Last year, Barack Obama had the right smirking with glee when he made the sensible suggestion that if the U.S. gets intelligence that there are Al Qaeda cells operating in Pakistan, we should go in and get them, with or without permission of the Pakistani government. If Pakistan won’t root out Al Qaeda, Obama said, his administration would. I never quite understood the controversy in that statement, which by the way, is the position of many in the U.S. military.
Nevertheless, Obama was roundly ridiculed. John McCain said the statement showed Obama’s naivete. Mitt Romney called him "Dr. Strangelove." Conservative blogs mischaracterized his position as wanting to "invade" or "bomb" Pakistan. Obama’s critics at the time apparently believed that it’s fine to invade and occupy a country whose government had virtually no ties to Al Qaeda, but suggesting we cross the border into a country whose government may be actively or passively harboring large numbers of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces is foolish.
It looks like the Bush administration didn’t find Obama’s position all that naive, because they’ve adopted it to the letter:
President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.
The new orders reflect concern about safe havens for Al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, as well as an American view that Pakistan lacks the will and ability to combat militants. They also illustrate lingering distrust of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies and a belief that some American operations had been compromised once Pakistanis were advised of the details.
Will McCain now condemn the Bush administration’s decision to go into Pakistan? Or was this idea only naive ten months ago? Was it only naive because it came from Obama?
The Obama campaign should be making a much bigger deal about this.
I noticed that as well, along with a couple other items which make up an Obama foreign policy trifecta, all ridiculed by the right but now becoming official Bush policy.
1. Withdraw from Iraq in 16 months. Bush on the verge of an official agreement with Iraq to withdraw all troops in that time frame.
2. Enter Pakistan as necessary, Bush now clearly doing that.
3. Hold talks with Iran. Bush has now had high level officials engage in direct talks with Iran.
Bush is now entering Pakistan because Musharaf (sp?) is on his way out … it has nothing to do with Obama.
“Bush is now entering Pakistan because Musharaf (sp?) is on his way out”
Why is it such a good time now? If anything, the ridicule that Obama received for his stance was based on the presumption that cross-border activities would destabilize Pakistan. In July, they were going through a significant national crisis and the ruling party was even calling for the president to resign. Are we to believe Pakistan is somehow more stable now?
This issue will never get attention of course. It is difficult enough to simply call out McCain/Palin on same lie about the Bridge to Nowhere being systematically repeated, much less inform the public on complicated international affairs.
Given how clever the Republicans are at campaigning, Obama’s camp would play this up and then McCain would be the one coming out and accusing Obama for siding with the President.
I’m just happy McCain and Obama had the good sense not to show up in NYC this morning for the reading of the names ceremony at the World Trade Center Site.
I think Obama wants to avoid all connection with Bush foreign policy.
the ridicule that Obama received for his stance was based on the presumption that cross-border activities would destabilize Pakistan
I was more under the impression that the ridicule was based on its obvious flouting of international law. I think that may have been spectacularly naive of me. Your explanation is more likely the correct one.
I think that Senator Obama is right on the substance — we should attack AQ cells within Pakistan, without getting permission from or giving warning to the Pakistani government.
But it’s irresponsible for a major-party candidate to SAY that out loud. It’s the kind of thing that you DO and don’t talk about. If somebody asks, you say “who, us?”
This is not to say that Senator McCain hasn’t been similarly irresponsible — it’s irresponsible to make up little ditties about bombing Iran, or to make open-ended security commitments to Georgia.
But Obama was wrong to signal his intent to take such action in advance.
Crack, it plays poorly in the media if it’s seen as Obama taking Bush’s stance; however, it plays well in the media if it gets portrayed (as it happened) that Bush took Obama’s stance. Obama gets foreign policy credibility out of being prescient about chasing terrorists into Pakistan.
Iconoclast: given the position we’re in, it’s a strong way of saying “You clean up this problem, or we’ll clean it up with or without your permission.” It puts it on everyone’s radar: Pakistan knows we’re not going to sit by and let their indifference harm us, AQ knows that they don’t have the safehaven they think they have, and the US knows that we’re not sitting around with our thumbs up our butts playing defense in Afghanistan. I think if you’re serious about following your words with action, it’s good. If you’re just saber-rattling (Bomb-bomb-Iran?), you get people’s hackles up without any reward for doing so (at least in the foreign policy arena. It’ll sure make the neo-cons happy).
I think we want(ed) Musharaf in power because he was friendly with us and part of that ‘deal’ is that we couldn’t (openly) go into Pakistan. If Musharaf is leaving and we have no idea what idiot might come to power, then Bush probably said ’screw it’. So Obama may be right, but again I don’t think Bush’s decision has anything to do with anything Obama said/believes. That’s all I was saying ….
If Obama’s campaign is trying to paint McCain=Bush and Bush starts following Obama, that helps the US but reduces the McCain=Bush angle especially if McCain still thinks its stupid. Then he’s not Bush.
McCain thought it was stupid because Obama said it and he didn’t think it would happen. McCain does not give thought to things beyond their political value to his ambitions.
Obama’s already taken an “Even Bush got it eventually” angle with the Iraq timetable; I don’t see why he isn’t doing something similar here.
“The Obama campaign should be making a much bigger deal about this.”
They probably would, if they weren’t so busy chasing after Palin. Evidently her personal life is more important than how the country is run.
To be fair: Conditions change. Invading Pakistan was a bridge not to be crossed until other options were exhausted, and a timetable makes much more sense with the current security situation than it did a year ago. I have been impressed with Obama’s learning curve on such issues, though; for instance, he backed off on the timetable issue until it became a reasonable option.
Technically, Mitt is the only person who hypocritically called him out. McCain said that the naivite was to broadcast his position to the world.
I also didn’t think Obama’s statements were tremendously controversial, provided such a decision is made in a deliberate and honest manner and occurs in the absence of ANY Pakistani cooperation (which is not a far-fetched notion, considering the relationship of Pakistani intel. to fundamentalist groups). In fact, I think he was trying to get at–what should be–the real purpose of the “war on terrorism”: to track down, disrupt, dismantle and/ or destroy the Al-Queda network and its members. AQ is the problem and has been since Osama left Saudi Arabia to start operations in Sudan during the Gulf War I era. All focus should have remained on this terrorist syndicate, but that’s not the way things worked out. I’m sure I’m more non-interventionist than an Obama administration would be, but relative to McCain-Palin, the Dems look like a safer bet.
#10 Crack: Great point. The Republicans think all Obama’s ideas are stupid until they decide to appropriate them.
It probably has to do with Mush-man being out and us being able to drop the pretense of working with Pakistan to fix this issue. As someone else said, it’s not something that really should be talked about, but should be done.
It’s likely against international law, but then, so is harboring the Taliban/al Qaeda.
“Will McCain now condemn the Bush administration’s decision to go into Pakistan? Or was this idea only naive ten months ago? Was it only naive because it came from Obama?
The Obama campaign should be making a much bigger deal about this. ”
In the last election the biggest difference between Kerry and Bush was the Kerry was pushing the “surge” while the Busheviks were going on about how terrible he was for doing so.
Perhaps Obama’s campaign has noticed that “I’m a more crazed warmonger than the other guy” didn’t really work out all that well for Kerry, even if it turned out not to be true in the end.
Che Icono:
“But it’s irresponsible for a major-party candidate to SAY that out “loud.
I remember thinking the same thing. It is much easier to deal with the repercussions, after the fact,politically, than before.
To be fair, they sort of _had_ to wax negative about Obama’s strategy. Consider what would happen had they agreed with him – the talking heads in the MSM would have ripped into the administration for recklessness (or some such) and diplomatic relations with Pakistan would have suffered as well.
Bush & co. knew we’d be doing it sooner or later but had the sense to refute it in public. Not a bad ploy, apparently as it seems to have given our enemies a false sense of confidence, leading them to concentrate in Pakistan and thus expose themselves to attack. We did similar ploys in Iraq where entire neighborhoods would seem ‘out of control’, sometime for months when suddenly we’d drop the hammer and nail a bunch. Seems like a good strategy against terrorism to me… but then again IAMAG (I am not a general)