Thomas wrote:Lash is right.
That may be the first time that sentence has ever been written in earnest.
Thomas wrote:Obama advocates for preventive strikes in foreign countries here. Or in other words, he says that he will respect the sovereignty of Pakistan only if Pakistan does what America wants. We agreed this kind of talk was unacceptable when it came from the likes of Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Condoleeza Rice; it is equally unacceptable from Barack Obama. It's the kind of thinking that earned America its reputation as an international bully.
Not the same thing -- not by a long shot. Obama advocates strikes inside Pakistani territory, which, as
old europe points out, is far different from strikes
against Pakistan. Furthermore, such strikes are not necessarily contrary to international law. It seems clear that nations are allowed a certain latitude in striking terrorist targets within states that are incapable or unwilling to root out those terrorists themselves. That principle goes back to the era of the Barbary pirates.
That being said, I'm not sure I agree with Obama's stance here. It's one thing to bomb targets in the Taliban-run Afghanistan or the Sudan, but it's quite another to do so in an ostensibly friendly state like Pakistan. On the other hand, it is quite clear that Pakistan has shown little eagerness to control its own border territories, and the current policy of waiting for Musharraf to take care of this problem has, I think, been a demonstrable failure (not, to be sure, the kind of disastrous failure that Iraq has been, but a failure nonetheless).
Pakistan's cooperation has, as far as I can tell, yielded few tangible benefits in the Afghan conflict, and Musharraf has been in no hurry to act against the Taliban forces inside the border provinces. That is, perhaps, not surprising, given that Pakistan was practically the only government in the world that had cordial relations with the Taliban regime. And Obama's pledge to make American aid to Islamabad contingent on actual results in acting against the Taliban certainly is a welcome change from the current policy, which rewards Musharraf for doing nothing.
Thomas wrote:I recognize that the rest of the speech is very reasonable. But this barely matters. National sovereignty is fundamental to international law. If a politician disregards national sovereignty at his convenience, that renders secondary any progress he might otherwise make on the status quo. It's the progress of a cannibal eating with knife and fork.
That's a great line (I may have to steal it), but it's not really apt in this instance.
