Obama Speech Pt II Posted by Michael Cohen

One of the comments I received today about my earlier Obama post provides a great jumping off point for another important issue that I think needs to be raised about his recent terrorism speech.

MyDD and others have argued that Obama is advocating the same preemptive war policy as Bush in calling for a potential strike against AQ leaders in Pakistan. I am at a loss to see how anyone who read the speech in its entirety could draw such a conclusion.

First of all the Pakistan section was four graphs out of a lengthy speech on terrorism. But more to the point, read exactly what Obama said:

If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.

That strikes me as a fairly measured step for an American President to take - present the evidence to Musharraf and if he does nothing than be prepared to act unilaterally. Yet MyDD suggests that Obama is calling for the "military invasion of a sovereign nation" as if he wants to launch Iraq II. That is quite an exaggeration and it seems a fairly silly one to me.

Moreover, I think a message like Obama's is a bit more subtle then many are realizing. If an American President were to make clear to Musharraf, either privately or publicly, that we are fully prepared to act against AQ leadership in Pakistan . . . do you think this might light a fire under him? It seems to me that the threat of America acting might do the trick in actually getting Musharraf to go after these guys. I understand that Musharraf is a key ally of the US, but when he is allowing terrorists to operate in his midst with impunity, something has to be done.

To reverse the question to liberal, anti-interventionists, if the U.S. were to have highly actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of Bin Laden, should we do nothing? Should we not act? This is a man who killed 3,000 Americans and who is likely plotting to kill more - if we have a chance to take him out we should and I think most Americans would agree. If liberals are not willing to use force in this situation - then would they ever be willing to do it?

I argued in an earlier post that our military is only one tool in the US arsenal for fighting terrorists - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. In fact, it would be a real policy mistake if the misguided invasion of Iraq would cause Democrats to question the use of military force in fighting the war against Islamic extremism.

Not to sound overly militaristic here, but it seems to me that there when it comes to hardcore Al Qaeda, if we have a chance to kill them, we absolutely should, no matter where they are. These are individuals who aspire to kill Americans, short of capture or death, I'm not sure how else to deal with them. And after all . . . we are fighting a war here! Frankly, our failure to act more aggressively at Tora Bora is part of the reason why this issue is even being debated.

One of the advantages that Obama has as a critic of the Iraq war is that he can use his credibility with the anti-war wing of the party to bring them around to the view that there is an appropriate time and place for the US to act aggressively and unilaterally when fighting the war on terrorism.

For nearly 40 years, liberal Democrats have looked askance at the use of American military force. It's about time the party changed its stripes, not just because it's smart politics, but because it's the right thing to do. There is a time and place to use American military force and we shouldn't be afraid to use this key tool in our arsenal. The fact that most of the key Democrats running for President seem to share his view is a welcome sign and an important moment for the party.

Comments

[Cal]

If liberals are not willing to use force in this situation - then would they ever be willing to do it?

You're distorting the argument. Most Democrats -- even most liberals -- supported the invasion of Afghanistan. But what you're talking about is attacking -- use whatever verb you prefer -- a nation with nuclear weapons. Maybe the Pakistanis will see it as justified, but what if they don't? And what if the intelligence is wrong and we kill a lot of innocent people? (Our track record on "actionable intelligence" does not seem very good, and if Bin Laden is smart, he'll even try to give us this intelligence to lure us in.)

I'm not saying that Obama is wrong. But this is not the slam dunk hawkish case you make it out to be. The fact that Rumsfeld aborted the 2005 raid proves that it's not just peaceniks who find these arguments compelling.

I just wish some of the liberal hawks would give as much thought as Rumsfeld has to the negative repercussions of the use of force.

[Erik Leaver]

Beyond Cal's good point on the issue of "actionable intelligence" the real issue at hand here isn't should we act or not act, but what is the framework for intervention.

A unilateral strike against Pakistan, Iran, etc. would fall outside the UN and international legal framework. Bush doesn't care about this because he doesn't give any lip service to these institutions or about real diplomacy. But when Obama says he's open to unilateral invasions it takes away his credibility on the diplomatic front. You just can't have it both ways. If you want to work in a framework of international law you can't keep exempting yourself when ever it pleases you.

This doesn't mean you have to take military options off the table. But we should start recognizing that the military option is usually the least effective option and should only be the tool of last resort. But that's not sexy enough for those candidates and analysts looking to be "muscular and serious."

[Zathras]

This is all so much campaign positioning on Obama's part. He, or rather his campaign consultants, want to draw clear distinctions between Obama and the unpopular Bush administration without sounding weak or defeatist. A touch of belligerency in his rhetoric about al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan places him where his campaign feels he needs to be.

Would an Obama administration pursue a policy toward those sanctuaries be different than that of the current administration? Almost certainly not. The reality is that an American strike that took out the al Qaeda leadership would be resented but understood in Pakistan even if there were some collateral damage. But an American strike that missed, while killing Pakistani nationals on Pakistani soil, could generate disastrous repercussions. Pakistan today is not Afghanistan ten years ago; its government is not weak or hostile to the United States, it has many more people behind whom al Qaeda terrorists can hide, and of course it has a nuclear arsenal. Not striking at al Qaeda in Afghanistan ten years ago was feckless and a dreadful mistake, but the risk of destabilizing the Pakistani government, alienating its people and jeopardizing control of its nuclear arsenal makes this situation significantly different.

Obama can see this as well as former Secretary Rumsfeld could, even if he is genuinely less clear about the fact that many of his other foreign policy proposals are really aimed at reversing the decimation of American foreign policy's non-military components that took place under the last Democratic President.