By Ben CohenBarack Obama's dismissal of the standard 'We Don't talk to our enemies' foreign policy stance was something of a revelation. No mainstream Democratic candidate in recent times has had to guts to go against the party line, but Obama, true to his word was offering a 'different type of politics'.
However, in one swift move, Obama has destroyed his credibility on the topic by announcing he would invade Pakistan if they didn't follow Washington's orders.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will" said Obama in his foreign policy speech on August 1st.
"There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard."
It appears that Obama has fallen into the same ideological trap that has infected American politicians for the past 60 years, believing that U.S interests supersede international law and the national sovereignty of other countries.
To put this in perspective, let us imagine the situation in reverse. Let's say President Musharraf announced he would be sending Pakistani forces to the U.S if they did not clamp down on extreme neo con elements in the White House.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value neo-con targets, and President Bush won't act, we will".
Given America's track record in killing people in the middle east, Musharraf probably has a better case than Obama. But not in the world of American hegemony, where it is one rule for the U.S, and another for everyone else.
The Pakistani government was also unsurprisingly unimpressed with Obama's bluster.
In an interview with AFP Pakistan's Minister of State for Information Tariq Azeem said,"Such statements are being made out of sheer ignorance."
"They are not fully apprised about the ground realities and not aware of the efforts by Pakistan," he continued.
"We have said before that we will not allow anyone to infringe our sovereignty."
Clearly an attempt to out muscle other Democrats on foreign policy, Obama has sold himself shockingly short of the 'politics of hope' he preached at the beginning of his campaign. If Democrats and people around the world expected something different from Obama, they have been let down badly.
Far from the outsider he has portrayed himself as, it is politics as usual from the Obama campaign.END
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1 comments:
A good point well made mate. America has set some pretty dangerous precedents over the last few years.
Worryingly, they have been blatant about their ulteria motives - saying that they will happily launch themselves into countries who may hypothetically not be fighting their own war on terror as hard as they would wish, but are less keen to dive the same way into humanitarian crises in Africa.
It has been shameless, and yet very few credible and influential world leaders have stepped up to the plate and said that it's not on.
Has George Bush made the rest of the world afraid of America?
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