I read (and re-read) Barack Obama’s major speech on terrorism — titled, “The War We Need to Win” — and was very impressed. I wouldn’t necessarily say it broke new policy ground, but it was as strong an articulation of the Democratic approach to counter-terrorism as I’ve seen in the last few years.
It hit every note that the left has been wanting to hear since Bush’s counter-terrorism policy began to crumble in late-2002. Obama articulated a counter-terrorism vision that highlighted the tragic flaws of the current policy, while offering a strong, common-sense alternative.
Better yet, politically, Matthew Yglesias explained how Obama effectively re-framed the broader debate.
More interesting is that Obama, unlike some of the reporters who covered the speech, refused to frame his determination to fight al-Qaida as a contrast with his dovish views on Iraq. Rather….he says that “by refusing the end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give then in 2002: a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” Opposition to the war in Iraq, then and now, in other words, is part and parcel of a commitment to a serious struggle against al-Qaida.
This is precisely right, and it’s precisely Obama’s ability to move the conversation in this direction that’s his campaign’s most underappreciated asset. It’s not just that [Hillary] Clinton took a different position on the authorization vote four and a half years ago. Rather, Obama, having established more space between his views and those of the Republicans can, in effect, punch much harder, accusing conservatives of radically misconceiving the problem.
Now, Kevin Drum notes that Obama’s speech was probably not unique to Obama, and suggested he might want to comb through it, looking for sections that wouldn’t appear in speeches from the other top Democratic candidates. I suspect there isn’t much — Obama was articulating a Democratic vision, which I suspect would be embraced by most credible Democrats.
But Obama did it first, did it better, did it without Bush’s frames (there was no explicit mention of a “war on terror”), and did it in such a way as to make the progressive approach to counter-terrorism the strong approach to counter-terrorism.
And then, of course, there’s Pakistan.
As you’ve no doubt heard, this was the provocative part of a lengthy and detailed speech.
“As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.
“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.
“And Pakistan needs more than F-16s to combat extremism. As the Pakistani government increases investment in secular education to counter radical madrasas, my Administration will increase America’s commitment. We must help Pakistan invest in the provinces along the Afghan border, so that the extremists’ program of hate is met with one of hope. And we must not turn a blind eye to elections that are neither free nor fair — our goal is not simply an ally in Pakistan, it is a democratic ally.”
The right went berserk with breathtakingly hypocritical criticism, insisting that Obama wants to “invade” Pakistan. That’s simply not what he said — he’s talking about attacking terrorists who have taken refuge in parts of Pakistan. Why conservatives are balking at a plan that focuses on killing terrorists is a mystery.
Some on the left were equally outraged. Jerome Armstrong wrote, “[T]his is basically a continuation of the Bush-Cheney doctrine of endorsing unilateral pre-emptive military attacks abroad, lighter perhaps, but certainly not the mentality that would pull us out of the mideast quagmire.” Some of the initial news accounts were misleading, and I can see how someone who didn’t read the entire speech might have gotten that impression, but that’s not at all consistent with what Obama actually said.
We’re talking about a country where al Qaeda has sought refuge in tribal areas outside the reach of Musharraf, who, by the way, Bush’s nonsense to the contrary notwithstanding, is a military dictator, not a democratic leader. Are Obama’s critics saying if the White House gets actionable intelligence on, say, Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani cave, and the U.S. is in a position to act, we shouldn’t? Indeed, given those circumstances, wouldn’t Musharraf approve a special-ops mission anyway? (And for good measure, attacking al Qaeda leaders responsible for 9/11 is not “pre-emptive,” it’s “responsive.”)
I thought Obama’s speech was close to perfect, and could help serve as a model for how the party articulates a counter-terrorism policy. Read the whole thing and let me know if you agree.