Barack Obama's Bright Idea

Let it never be said that Barack Obama is antiwar. In a bewildering surprise attack today, he suddenly announced that sending troops into Pakistan to eliminate terrorist targets would be a part of his hypothetical Presidency. "Diplomacy" has been the watchword of Obama's anti-terror proposals up to this point, but it appears that Obama thinks that we ought to attack another country.

Obama has been one of the harshest critics of the Iraq War. His objections to the war are that we unilaterally invaded a country that was no threat to us, gave the minions of Osama bin Laden the war they wanted, and that the war ruined the reputation of United States among the different countries of the world. A war in Pakistan would be different, of course, because this time the invaded country would not only be a non threat, it would also be one of our allies in the war against terror. I do not wish to even start to imagine would this would do to our diplomatic efforts.

I really can't imagine why Barack Obama thinks that sending troops into Pakistan wouldn't cause guerrilla attacks like the ones in Iraq. Saddam, at least was a murderous dictator, and in addition was a secular leader, as opposed to an Islamic theocrat. Pakistan is a more or less peaceful democracy, and would arouse sympathy in any radical Muslim who was turned off by Saddam's brutality. Pakistan is seventy percent Sunni, which happens to be the sect we are fighting in Iraq. An invasion of Pakistan would almost certainly end any hopes may have had of forming an alliance with the Sunni's, or at least persuading them to stop shooting at us.

This state of affairs would have the nearly inevitable result of a Muslim world with the Sunni sect firmly against America, and the Shi'a sect shakily allied with us. The Shi'a by the way, represent less than fifteen percent of the Islamic world.

Also, Pakistan has nukes. Maybe Obama is naive? I don't often agree with Hillary (who described him that way after the recent Democrat debate), but she is definitely right there.