How Obama has shifted foreign policy from Bush days

[Nancy Waterman]

This is a terrific article by Peter Beinart in Time and explains Obama's larger goals in his Afghan surge.

To understand Barack Obama's Afghanistan decision, it's instructive to go back to one history-shifting sentence, uttered by his predecessor more than eight years ago. It was Sept. 20, 2001. The nation was in agony, and George W. Bush stood before a joint session of Congress, telling Americans where to direct their rage. "Americans are asking, 'Who attacked our country?'" Bush declared early in his remarks. "The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaeda." (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

Had Bush stopped there, everything would be different today. But a few minutes later, he made this fateful pivot: "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there." After that, Bush mentioned terror, terrorists or terrorism 18 times more. But he didn't mention alQaeda again. When he returned to Congress a few months later for his January 2002 State of the Union address, he cited Hamas, Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, North Korea, Iran and Iraq and employed variations of the word terror 34 times. But he mentioned al-Qaeda only once.

For Obama, this is the original sin whose consequences must now be repaired. His foreign policy in the greater Middle East amounts to an elaborate effort to peel back eight years of onion in hopes of finding the war on terrorism's lost inner core: the struggle against al-Qaeda and alQaeda alone. That's the subtext underlying his new Afghan strategy. He's raising troop levels, but less to vanquish the Taliban than to gain the leverage to effectively negotiate with them — in hopes of isolating alQaeda from its Afghan allies. He's boosting America's means but narrowing its ends. The same logic underlies his outreach to Iran and Syria and his rhetoric about groups like Hizballah and Hamas. Obama's not trying to end the war on terrorism, but he is trying to downsize it — so that it doesn't overwhelm the U.S.'s capacities and crowd out his other priorities. (See pictures of Afghanistan's dangerous Korengal Valley.)

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1945182,00.html#ixzz0Yp4oqBTH

[ShortnFiery]

1. Peter Beinart?

What a tool! :puke:

[KoKo]

19. Exactly...he's given his "marching orders" and he goes with it...

Haven't seen anything posted here in awhile from his "mouthpiece he wears around his neck connected to the wire in his ear" but I would "look to the source of his feed."

Good on you for calling him out!

[Clio the Leo]

2. Ah yes .... the "Axis of Evil".....

... one branch of which operated out of the White House.

[grytpype]

3. But... but the leftbaggers say Obama is the same as Bush!!!!!

[Cha]

6. That's all their attempt at critical

thinking allows them to see.

[mike_c]

4. yet al-Qaeda is a minor, or perhaps even absent player in Afghanistan....

Obama's own national security estimate is that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Not 100, which would put the troop to al-Qaeda ratio somewhere in the 1000:1 range-- do we really need 1000 trained and massively equipped troops to fight each al-Qaeda goatherd and farmer in a medieval country? But in any event, not 100 al-Qaeda-- FEWER than 100 al-qaeda, a number that bespeaks an upper estimate that ranges from zero to ninety-nine. There might not be ANY al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, and zero is as likely a number as ninety-nine.

Why do we need 100,000 troops in Afghanistan to fight one, or ten, or maybe even ninety fundamentalist villagers? How does that suggest an improvement over the Bush foreign policy?

Finally, one last comment. U.S. foreign policy has NOT change appreciably in decades. What changes from administration to administration is more a matter of implementation, style, and emphasis. But the essence of U.S. foreign policy-- imperialism and exploitation for corporate and MIC profit-- has not improved one whit.

[treestar]

11. I don't think it's a war in the sense of battles

of the old fashioned kind. We're securing the area.

As to the 100, how many did it take to carry out 911? It's not an army of 100, it's a terrorist group.

[mike_c]

14. so you honestly accept that it requires 100,000 of the best trained...

...and equipped troops in the world to fight a few dozen "terrorists" who are goat herders and farmers in their spare time? That's insane logic, IMO.

[treestar]

23. That's not how the mission is defined, however

But it does occur to me that the "only 100" argument might miss the point. It's not like they are drawn up in old fashioned battle formations.

[Cha]

15. Thanks, treestar, for highlighting

the difference.

[arcadian]

22. The fear

How are even capable of leaving your own home? It must consume you.

[billh58]

16. The Taliban and

Al Qaeda are made up primarily of Pashtun tribes people, and have always been allies -- just like during the run up to 9/11:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-marshall/the-talibans-ties-to-al-q_b_348584.html

If the Taliban takes over (again) in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will return stronger than ever. Then what?

[mike_c]

17. al-Qaeda is NOT a Pashtun movement....

Whatever gave you that idea? Al-Qaeda has roots in the mujaheddin movement, placing it closer to the warlords the Taliban opposes than to the Taliban itself.

[billh58]

18. I am not talking

about the "roots" of Al Qaeda, but the facts on the ground today, and during the run up to 9/11. Al Qaeda actively recruits Pashtuns, and has been closely aligned with the predominantly-Pashtun Taliban for years:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0113/p01s04-wosc.html

and here:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/01/simmering_discord_in_the_tribal_badlands/

Additionally, one of OBL's sons married the daughter of Mullah Omar. To deny that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are closely allied, AND that both organizations include Pashtun tribes people, is to deny the facts on the ground. The Taliban, Al Qaeda, and the Pashtun people are all adherents of the radical Sunni sect of Islam.

Your argument that there are only a "few" members of Al Qaeda present in Afghanistan is correct. What that argument omits, however, is that the Taliban protects the Al Qaeda members who reside in the predominantly Pashtun regions near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, and their numbers are growing. Al Qaeda, as a fanatical religious movement, like the Taliban, is growing in numbers and influence thanks to the bumbling efforts, and lack of planning, of the previous administration.

[LiberalAndProud]

5. I remember the day of that speech.

In restrospect, it's very clear that Afghanistan was meant to be a jumping off point on our way to Iraq. Bush all but said so. Iraq became THE war in very short order. It was fairly easy to forget that we were waging two wars, rather unsuccessfully, I might add.


And today Obama is "boosting America's means but narrowing its ends" in Afghanistan. I hope so.

[Cha]

7. Thank you, Nancy, and this is what I got

from Pres Obama's speech.

[SpartanDem]

8. Wish I could rec this 1000 times

Despite what the Obama=Bush simpletons say there are very real and very concrete differences in how they view the fight against terrorism.

[Cha]

9. When bush "on a mission from god" abandoned Afghanistan

to bomb Iraq he was aiding and abetting al qaeda in Afghanistan and opening a big ol can of terrorist fomentation in Iraq.

Of course Pres Obama & bush are diametrically opposed.

[Nancy Waterman]

10. They are diametrically opposed

but some cannot see the difference. This article spells it out nicely.

Obama is "boosting America's means but narrowing its ends" in Afghanistan.

Hi Cha!!

[Cha]

12. The article is invaluble through history lessons and current events,

that show bush to be the very antithesis of Pres Obama.

<another snip from your article>

.."In Obama's narrower struggle against al-Qaeda, however, a cold war with Tehran makes little sense. For all its nastiness, the Iranian regime doesn't direct its terrorism against the U.S. And Iran's Shi'ite theocrats have a mostly hostile relationship with the anti-Shi'ite theocrats of al-Qaeda. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has caused trouble for the U.S. largely out of fear that if the U.S. prevails in those countries, Iran will be next. But the Obama Administration seems to believe that if the U.S. can convince Iran's regime that it's not next, Washington and Tehran can cooperate to achieve their common goal in Afghanistan and Iraq: smashing al-Qaeda.

The U.S.-Iranian cold war has shown some signs of a thaw, Tehran's continued defiance of world opinion on its nuclear program notwithstanding. Obama has begun the highest-level diplomatic engagement with Tehran in 30 years and refrained from calling for the overthrow of the regime, even amid mass Iranian protests last summer aimed at accomplishing exactly that. Media coverage of the diplomatic dance between Washington and Tehran focuses on Iran's nuclear program, but by pursuing a fundamentally different relationship with the Islamic Republic, the Obama Administration is also quietly conceding that Iran's militancy is different from the terrorism of al-Qaeda, an organization that no U.S. diplomat would ever sit across a table from."

Hi Nancy, it's always good to see you posting on DU~

You're like my political therapist.:)

[Hekate]

13. KnR

[KoKo]

20. A K&R...because Nancy's thoughts deserve the view...even though I feel the "source" is flawed.

I'm sort of praise the poster...but have reservations about the post source.

Still a K&R! with major reservations.

:kick:

[KoKo]

21. Kick...because there's a side to me that says a Clever President like Obama knows Good Cop/Bad Cop

That's been my hope...but I'm very upset with him..thinking he will turn out like what "good meaning folks, here on DU said about our Dems when they WON 2006....! That Harry Reid was a Boxer and would do "Rope a Dope" and that Nancy Pelosi was "FOR US PROGRESSIVES ...and as FIRST LADY of the HOUSE she would work her butt off to support Females.

Both have been so disappointing that it "Boggles the Mind" to even give them any puny respect these days. SO MUCH FOR THEM...Sweep them out in a Dust Bin of Failure...but then put OBAMA into that Equation. He's a "BRAND" it seems....

Our heads spin on the left...so much work we did for TRUTH OUT AND JUSTICE and so LITTLE REWARD.