There was a point in Obama’s speech tonight where he veered off the specific topic at hand and summoned the American Myth, which is the creed we tell ourselves that we all believe.
Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, and the service and sacrifice of our grandparents, our country has borne a special burden in global affairs. We have spilled American blood in many countries on multiple continents. We have spent our revenue to help others rebuild from rubble and develop their own economies. We have joined with others to develop an architecture of institutions – from the United Nations to NATO to the World Bank – that provide for the common security and prosperity of human beings.
We have not always been thanked for these efforts, and we have at times made mistakes. But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades – a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.
For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for – and what we continue to fight for – is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.
As a country, we are not as young – and perhaps not as innocent – as we were when Roosevelt was President. Yet we are still heirs to a noble struggle for freedom. Now we must summon all of our might and moral suasion to meet the challenges of a new age.
Very few Americans disagree with the sentiments expressed here by the president, but our history isn’t as selfless as we’d like to believe. A lot of those sentiments ring false and hollow after our invasion and occupation of oil-rich Iraq. They don’t quite fit with our participation in Operation Condor or our war with Vietnam. I worry about rhetoric that sugarcoats our shared history and leads people away from understanding why we have a problem with terrorism. But I want our country to behave the way Obama describes it. I want us to live out the true meaning of our creed. So, I have mixed feelings when I hear the president say these things. If he leads us into confusion, it’s a problem, but if he leads us to listen to our better angels, I’m all for it. And what Obama said is true in a glass-half-full kind of way. We need to hear about our positive accomplishments sometimes.
If we can get back the credibility on human rights we’ve lost, we can be a force for good in the world if we choose to be. Many will scoff at the hypocrisy of an America that just invaded and destroyed Iraq based on a tissue of lies having the gall to speak out about ‘moral suasion.’ I’ll admit that hearing it made my ears burn a bit. But what is the alternative? To slink off the world stage in shame and cease even pretending to live up to the myth we tell about ourselves? I think Obama’s course is the wiser one, provided that deeds match rhetoric with more consistency going forward.
But Obama gave a speech about Afghanistan, and we should probably discuss that. After the speech, I participated in a call with several senior administration officials from the Pentagon and National Security Council. I noted to them that the president had said in his speech that the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan are “the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda” that provide safe havens for al-Qaeda to plan attacks. I asked them how important these safe havens were in the age of the Internet where plots can be hatched from anywhere. The answer I got was basically that a large number of terrorist attacks all across the world have been traced back to the border region, including more than one plot that has been disrupted in recent months. But, in a nod to my point, they also talked about the threat of instability in Pakistan that is presented by the Taliban movement on both sides of the border.
Now, I took this answer as both a good and a bad sign. On the good side, it shows that they understand where the real threat to our national security lies, and that is in Pakistan. On the bad side, their answer confirmed my suspicion that we have to take a large part of their sales pitch for this escalation with a big pinch of salt. The name of the game is not really building police and security forces in Afghanistan or tamping down corruption there so that we can leave. The real name of the game is in crushing this radical Islamist movement that is threatening the security and stability of both Afghanistan and (much more importantly) Pakistan.
And these advisers had quite a bit more to say about our new policy towards Pakistan in response to other questions. I can confirm that the bullshit meter registers significantly lower when these folks talk about the broader regional picture than when they try to tell us that they can stand-up a Karzai government in 18 months. They have thought this through, even if they are basically trying to ride to a tiger with a blindfold on. I believe them when they say that we really can’t afford to let this Taliban movement grow unmolested on either side of the border, but I don’t believe them when they tell me that they can solve this problem by standing up a corrupt, illegitimate government in Kabul in a year and a half with a mere 30,000 additional troops. To succeed, we’re going to need Pakistan to really commit to dealing with their problems. Fortunately, the administration is aware of this and it is part of their plan. Here is how Obama put it in his speech:
Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.
We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.
In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.
In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear. America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan’s democracy and development. We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the Pakistani people must know: America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.
It’s good that the administration recognizes the true threat to our national security, but it worries me that we must rely on Pakistan for our success. Because the real issue is stability in Pakistan, we can do everything right in Afghanistan and still not solve the problem. In fact, it’s possible that pushing the Taliban out of Afghanistan into Pakistan will make the real mission even more difficult.
The number one thing I came away with tonight is a feeling of pity that these well-meaning hard-working folks in Obama’s national security team have to deal with such complex problems. I am not convinced that their strategy is going to work, nor that we face that much of a special threat to our domestic security from the border regions. But I was convinced that an unstable Pakistan is a huge nuclear threat to the region and possibly beyond, and that the Taliban movement there must be rolled back as part of a larger effort to calm things down in the subcontinent.
