From San Diego Union-Tribune via Real Clear Politics:
August 08, 2007
Rookie Mistake? Not So Fast
By Ruben Navarrette
The conventional thinking -- especially in Washington -- is that Barack Obama is flunking foreign policy. But this is one case where conventional thinking may be too closely tied to convention and not all that well thought out.
Yes, we've had a glimpse of the world according to Obama. And it doesn't look half bad.
Not the world itself, which is as dangerous and unpredictable as ever -- full of petty tyrants, enemies posing as friends, and rogue states in search of nuclear weapons.
I'm talking about the worldview of the junior senator from Illinois. What seemed like a rookie mistake -- i.e., suggesting that, as president, he'd meet with dictators from countries such as Cuba, Iran or North Korea
-- may actually wind up serving Obama well.
First, it let him draw a distinction between himself and the front-runner. Hillary Clinton helped the cause when she blasted Obama's comments as "irresponsible and frankly naive."
That's baby boomer code for "young and immature." The 46-year-old Obama stresses the fact that he's of a different generation than his opponents. This was Clinton pushing back. She might as well have sent the whippersnapper to his room without dessert. After all, Clinton lectured, the president of the United States must be careful not to be used "for propaganda purposes."
But the idea of talking to rogue states such as Iran and Syria has been suggested before, most recently by the Iraq Study Group. Obama's critics insist that there's a difference between diplomatic envoys and a presidential visit. But that distinction may be lost on many Americans, who will embrace the larger point that Obama is making -- that presidents shouldn't just meet with people who always agree with them and tell them what they want to hear.
The Washington establishment may scoff at that message, but I have a hunch it'll play well in Middle America. It should play especially well with Democratic voters who fault the Bush administration for its stubborn refusal to venture beyond its diplomatic comfort zone.
Second, Obama's foray into foreign policy gave him a chance to continue the conversation and provide specifics. Last week, in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C., he urged getting out of Iraq and moving "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Obama is wrong about leaving Iraq before the job is done but right about not losing sight of the goal of ferreting out terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And yet the candidate took fire from both parties for pledging that, if elected president, he would act on intelligence about "high-value terrorist targets" within Pakistan.
The media made it sound as if Obama was ready to launch a full-scale invasion of Pakistan. And pundits and politicians rushed to defend a country that Washington treats as an ally in the war on terror.
Rudy Giuliani suggested that Obama probably wished he could rephrase his remarks to be more accommodating of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Mitt Romney said that Obama was "confused as to who are our friends and who are our enemies." John McCain called Obama's remarks "kind of typical of his naivete." And Clinton couldn't resist scolding Obama again, insisting that how we capture or kill bin Laden or his lieutenants "should not be telegraphed."
But Obama wasn't hatching an invasion. He was talking about going into Pakistan if our military was in hot pursuit of "high-value terrorist targets."
There is no target of higher value than Osama bin Laden, and our intelligence agencies say that he's in the remote tribal areas of western Pakistan. Most Americans would probably agree that this is one person we have the right to pursue to the ends of the Earth. That includes going into Pakistan.
But the Pakistani ambassador to the United States insists that, if the U.S. military went into Pakistan after bin Laden, it would destabilize the region and hurt relations between the two countries. In fact, Mahmud Ali Durrani told CNN's Suzanne Malveaux that if the United States were to locate and kill bin Laden inside Pakistan it would so inflame the Pakistani people that it could actually hurt the war on terror.
Huh? Killing bin Laden would hurt the war on terror? And some presidential hopefuls consider these folks our friends, and others think these matters ought not even be discussed?
Suddenly, Barack Obama seems like the least-naive person in the race.
ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com
(c) 2007, The San Diego Union-Tribune
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