The Pakistan Flap

If you don't agree with Barack Obama that, when faced with the resurgence of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in northwest Pakistan, we should not defer to Pervez Musharraf if he demurred with a go-ahead for air strike against actionable terrorist targets, then you don't believe in the current policy of this country, as Joe Biden rightly suggested last night. This notion that Obama said he was going to invade Pakistan is nonsense. I can see, when the issue moved for no good reason into the area of nuclear weapons, why people would get pissed off.

Twenty years ago, everybody in this country (give or take a baker’s million blazing nutjobs) understood that the use of nuclear weapons was a cataclysmic, final act of madness, a step towards global suicide to be avoided at (almost) any cost. Now, absent an enemy with any real ability to do us harm, the idea that nuclear weapons should be available to use on caves full of crazy idiots armed with weapons that were the height of military sophistication approximately seventy years ago, this idea is the conventional wisdom? Of the Democratic Party? The party that ostensibly wants to end the war in Iraq? Where have you gone, Robert McNamara / A nation turns its loony eyes to you, doot doot doo.

Indeed. And it should be mentioned that nukes were thrown into the discussion by reporters, and it certainly wasn't the impetus of Obama. It should also be mentioned that nobody in the Congress on the Democratic side has done more to stop nuclear proliferation than Barack Obama. I understand that some in Pakistan are protesting the notion of military action whatsoever, and are claiming that Obama's comments weaken the war on terror. And even Republicans are calling his statements "dangerous" (these are the guys that all agreed on tactical nuclear strikes against Iran).

I'm sorry, but I don't agree. Pakistan is not a reliable ally so long as they're allowing safe havens in their own country. I believe these safe havens threaten the sovereignty Pakistan itself, as we've seen from the series of attacks over the past month. Obama spoke softly and carried a big stick, and preferred to do it in public rather than behind closed doors as Hillary Clinton would prefer ("there are some things you just don't say"). Samantha Power, who I repsect greatly, wrote a long note to this effect, framing the Pakistan situation as one in which Obama challenged the stale conventional wisdom that has brought us to the foreign policy disaster we now face. Obama didn't create this mess; he didn't support Musharraf's peace treaty with the Taliban; he didn't look the other way as wealthy Saudis funded terror (and he certainly didn't offer them billions of dollars in weapons for their trouble). He simply is trying to deal with solutions to the problems as they exist, and in DC this is considered something too brash and fresh for words.

Over the last few weeks, Barack Obama has once again taken positions that challenge Washington’s conventional wisdom on foreign policy. And once again, pundits and politicians have leveled charges that are now bankrupt of credibility and devoid of the new ideas that the American people desperately want.

On each point in the last few weeks, Barack Obama has called for a break from a broken way of doing things. On each point, he has brought fresh strategic thinking and common sense that break with the very conventional wisdom that has led us into Iraq [...]

Terrorist Sanctuaries: For years, we have given President Musharraf hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, while deferring to his cautious judgment on how to take out high-level al Qaeda targets – including, most likely, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Here is the result:

* Bin Laden and Zawahiri – two men with direct responsibility for 9/11– remain at large.
* Al Qaeda has trained and deployed hundreds of fighters worldwide from its sanctuary in northwest Pakistan.
* Afghanistan is far less secure because the Taliban can strike across the border, and then return to safety in Pakistan.

By any measure, this strategy has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us defer to Musharraf in perpetuity. Barack Obama wants to turn the page. If Musharraf is willing to go after the terrorists and stop the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base of operations, Obama would give him all of the support he needs. But Obama made clear that as President, if he had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan – and the Pakistanis continued to refuse to act against terrorists known to be behind attacks on American civilians – then he will use highly targeted force to do so.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right; the conventional wisdom is wrong. We need a new era that moves beyond the conventional wisdom that has brought us over-reliance on an unreliable dictator in Pakistan and an occupation of Iraq.
Nuclear Attacks on Terrorist Targets: For years, Washington’s conventional wisdom has held that candidates for President are judged not by their wisdom, but rather by their adherence to hackneyed rhetoric that make little sense beyond the Beltway. When asked whether he would use nuclear weapons to take out terrorist targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Barack Obama gave the sensible answer that nuclear force was not necessary, and would kill too many civilians. Conventional wisdom held this up as a sign of inexperience. But if experience leads you to make gratuitous threats about nuclear use – inflaming fears at home and abroad, and signaling nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants that using nuclear weapons is acceptable behavior, it is experience that should not be relied upon.

Barack Obama’s judgment is right. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It is wrong to propose that we would drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, potentially killing tens of thousands of people and sending America’s prestige in the world to a level that not even George Bush could take it. We should judge presidential candidates on their judgment and their plans, not on their ability to recite platitudes.

I completely agree.

UPDATE: I knew I heard Hillary say the exact same thing about Pakistan once. This argument seems to be about almost nothing.