Afghanistan and Pakistan Must Feel Obama’s Big Stick
President Obama has mastered half of the famous Teddy Roosevelt dictum, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” He’s even gotten a Nobel Prize for speaking softly after many years of bellicose Presidential statements — to the endless consternation of the Taliban, Rush Limbaugh, Al Queda, and others who wish to tear down America. Now it’s time for Obama to show that he has “big stick” mettle, too. And the obvious place to do this is in Afghanistan and its neighbor, Pakistan.
During our Iraq frenzy, a lot of us seem to have forgotten that there was this Osama bin Laden guy running around in Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with a whole lot of supporters in those countries and others, who were even more anti-American than Glenn Beck, who so far has stuck to word-bombs and has not set off any physical ones (yet). Our previous president swore over and over that he would capture or kill these horrible people (bin Laden and Al Queda, not Glenn Beck and his domestic yowlers), but he didn’t.
Now it’s Obama’s turn to get strong. Not to talk big, but to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal the support he needs to root out both the Taliban and Al Queda, not only in Afghanistan but also, if need be, in Pakistan.
Gen. McChrystal is not a gentle man. He is a professional warrior and good at it. His people have used what we might call “rough interrogation methods” more than once. But McChrystal’s job is not to make peaceniks happy, but to maintain — through the application of military force — an environment in which they can speak freely and try to make the world as peaceful as it can possibly be.
The Afghan government is corrupt (but may change somewhat after a runoff election). And Pakistan is a tangle composed of (supposed) American allies, our sworn enemies, and a lot of people who are caught between these two extremes. We need to have strong forces in that part of the world, in large part because even if you didn’t like Bush when he was president, he made a promise on behalf of our country to root out Al Queda and its allies, and if we are going to have international credibility we must carry out that promise.
We can speak loudly or softly, briefly or at length, but unless we do what we say we’ll do, no one will trust our leaders’ words.
This is why the “big stick” is so important right now. Yes, Afghanistan has the potential of becoming a Vietnam-style quagmire, and chances are slim that we can rapidly convert Afghanistan and Pakistan into a liberal, Western-style democracies where people do not routinely fear for their lives, and women, especially, are not routinely abused
But sometimes, we just need to do the best we can. Iraq is far from perfect, but most people there are better off today than they were when Bush was spouting his “mission accomplished” nonsense. It took plenty of hard slogging, lots of hard thought by Iraqi politicians, and far too many American and Iraqi casualties to get Iraq to the point where — just maybe — it may be able to survive as a viable, 21st Century nation. And without the famous (and heavily argued-against) Bush-ordered “surge,” Iraq would not be in that position today.
It’s time to do the same thing in Afghanistan. And, if necessary, in Pakistan. Both missions will be a lot easier to accomplish with plenty of “boots on the ground” than without them. Obama is obviously a well-trained lawyer and a successful politician, but he has even less military experience than I have. He needs to heed the advice our professional warriors are giving him, and to back them all the way instead of waffling.
Then, and only then, can we sit back and enjoy the happy glow we get from hearing America’s leaders speak softly and gently with other nations’ representatives instead of using the damaging rhetoric the previous administration used — and that brought far more hatred down on America than we deserved.