Obama takes control of US Foreign Policy

3 Responses to “Obama takes control of US Foreign Policy”

1. muffler Says:
   July 17th, 2008 at 7:54 am

   Thanks for the observation. I wonder if anyone else has seen this trend. Now Bush is sending diplomats to Iran for the first time since 1979… I repeat 1979. I only hope it isn’t an image over content thing. Bush is so consistent regarding image over content that he could just use these actions to claim they failed (since he underfunded or ignored the results) to justify his true agenda.

2. ngb Says:
   July 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

   Can you say “turn on a dime”? Only after Obama had left them sitting staring at their navels did McCain’s senior foreign policy advisors, Randy Scheunemann and Kori Schake pick their collective heads up from Iraq and look up to see Kabul burning. They never would have changed their original position on Afghanistan if it wasn’t for it appearing that Obama was the candidate who actually was listening to the senior military officers. The Generals have been saying for several months that Iraq was looking more and more stable while Afghanistan was going wobbly.
   As soon as Bill Burns returns from the G5+1 discussions with the Iranians and says there are benefits in continuing to negotiate over nuclear issues, McCain and his foreign policy team will be spouting Obama’s lines.
   Obama has now taken a commanding lead on foreign policy and national security issues because he’s made a common sense assessment of the situation and exercised good judgment. McCain, Scheuenemann and Schake are forced to play catch-up and are reduced to saying essentially “me too but even more than him”. I just hope McCain doesn’t have a “Jerry Ford” moment in the debates. For someone who was supposed to have the hammer on foreign policy this campaign has become a joke for McCain. McCain may be as bad a candidate as Dole was in ‘96.

3. John Maszka Says:
   July 19th, 2008 at 6:05 am

   In the 1950s, in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan, Pakistan obtained a 125 megawatt heavy-water reactor from Canada. After India’s first atomic test in May 1974, Pakistan immediately sought to catch up by attempting to purchase a reprocessing plant from France. After France declined due to U.S. resistance, Pakistan began to assemble a uranium enrichment plant via materials from the black market and technology smuggled through A.Q. Khan. In 1976 and 1977, two amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were passed, prohibiting American aid to countries pursuing either reprocessing or enrichment capabilities for nuclear weapons programs.

   These two, the Symington and Glenn Amendments, were passed in response to Pakistan’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability; but to little avail. Washington’s cool relations with Islamabad soon improved. During the Reagan administration, the US turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon’s program. In return for Pakistan’s cooperation and assistance in the mujahideen’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Reagan administration awarded Pakistan with the third largest economic and military aid package after Israel and Egypt. Despite the Pressler Amendment, which made US aid contingent upon the Reagan administration’s annual confirmation that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons capability, Reagan’s “laissez-faire” approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program seriously aided the proliferation issues that we face today.

   Not only did Pakistan continue to develop its own nuclear weapons program, but A.Q. Khan was instrumental in proliferating nuclear technology to other countries as well. Further, Pakistan’s progress toward nuclear capability led to India’s return to its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, an endeavor it had given up after its initial test in 1974. In 1998, both countries had tested nuclear weapons. A uranium-based nuclear device in Pakistan; and a plutonium-based device in India
   Over the years of America’s on again off again support of Pakistan, Musharraf continues to be skeptical of his American allies. In 2002 he is reported to have told a British official that his “great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.” Musharraf was referring to Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia … etc., etc., etc.,

   Taking the war to Pakistan is perhaps the most foolish thing America can do. Obama is not the first to suggest it, and we already have sufficient evidence of the potentially negative repercussions of such an action. On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid. Pakistan has 160 million Arabs (better than half of the population of the entire Arab world). Pakistan also has the support of China and a nuclear arsenal.

   I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?

   The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty.