Yonatan Zunger (zunger) wrote,
Yonatan Zunger
zunger

Sheesh.

In order to counter allegations that his foreign policy stance is naïve, today Barack Obama threatened to invade Pakistan.

Boy, he sure countered that allegation. Does he intend to conquer and hold a country of 157 million people, largely in hard-to-access mountain regions? Or is the plan simply to invade hostile areas like Waziristan, so that we can drive the people there slightly further into the mountains (which they've practiced holding by guerilla warfare for the past three thousand years or so) and in the process destabilize and delegitimize the central government until Musharraf's fragile grip on power fails, and the increasingly strong Islamist movement in the Pakistani military takes over?

I do like him as a "fresh face..." but seeing him on the last debate, he came across as an amateur. If he wants to get serious support in the primary, he's going to need to fill in his foreign policy background with some real understanding, not half-assed grandstanding.
Tags: middle east, us politics
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  • 4 comments

evan

August 1 2007, 21:59:00 UTC 8 years ago

I think "attack actionable targets" is a different statement than "conquer and hold the country".

zunger

August 1 2007, 22:45:40 UTC 8 years ago

Yup. Unfortunately, that reads a lot more like option 2. If we start attacking targets in places like Waziristan, then Musharraf can either support or oppose us. If he supports us, his ability to portray himself as having any independence at all is gone, and the opposition would have more than enough popular support to depose and kill him. If he opposes us, we pull out our support from his regime, and the opposition would again be in a good position to depose and kill him. Either way, it seems like a big win for the Islamists. (And not so much for us, since trying to attack people in the mountains is one of the things that gave land wars in Asia a bad name)