On Pakistan: Obama defers to Clinton

On the Meet the Press Sunday night when asked if India has the right to pursue terrorist into Pakistan, Obama had this to say:

Well, I'm not going to comment on that. What, what I'm going to restate is a basic principle. Number one, if a country is attacked, it has the right to defend itself. I think that's universally acknowledged. The second thing is that we need a strategic partnership with all the parties in the region--Pakistan and India and the Afghan government--to stamp out the kind of militant, violent, terrorist extremists that have set up base camps and that are operating in ways that threaten the security of everybody in the international community.

This open ambiguity towards India's (and the US') right to unilaterally intervene in Pakistan to apprehend al Qaeda operatives represents a shift from Obama’s to H. Clinton's campaign foreign policy.

During the Democratic primary this issue of unilaterally intervention into the sovereign affairs of Pakistan was a point of disagreement between Clinton and Obama. To Obama, the US is justified in acting unilaterally along the Afghani/Pakistani border in those instances in which the US had actionable intelligence about high-level al Qaeda operatives and the Pakistani government was either incapable or unwilling to act on it. Specifically, Obama had this to say:

“It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf [or Pakistan] won’t act, we will.”

While Clinton was not opposed to intervening in Pakistan to apprehend high-level al Qaeda operatives, she disagreed with Obama making that policy public:

“It is a very big mistake to telegraph that and to destabilize the Musharraf regime, which is fighting for its life against the Islamist extremists who are in bed with al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

Now as President-Elect, Obama is deferring to Clinton's better judgment. Yes, the US will act unilaterally on intelligence that promises the apprehension of high-level Jihadists; however, he has realized the destabilizing nature that occurs when one makes such policies public.

Publicly disclosing a US policy of unilateral intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs risks:

1. weakening the moderates within the Pakistani government while empowering the Islamic radicals.


2. increasing the likelihood of nuclear warfare between India and Pakistan.
   

More specifically, such statements can

• provide a rallying point for Pakistani Islamic fundamentalists: fighting the US government and those that collude with it, the moderates within the Pakistani government.


• incentivize al Qaeda to provide false intelligence to induce a US invasion into Pakistan in order to incite public out roar against and an ousting of the moderates in the Pakistani government who associate with/support the US government.


• provide India with legitimate arguments to intervene in Pakistan, increasing the likelihood of open warfare between two nuclear states who have multiple points of contention.
  

These scenarios seem extreme but are all wholly plausible. In the least, disclosing the US intent to intervene in Pakistan forces Pakistani moderates to distance themselves from the US government, which in turn decreases the US' influence and ability to send aid to (a) ensure the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and (b) support the economic liberalization of Pakistani society, empowering the middle-class and thereby creating an engine for further democratization and de-radicalization.

Thus, regardless of the US intentions towards Northwest Pakistan's Jihadist safe havens, it is imperative that Obama and his adviser's rhetoric support Pakistani moderates and decrease the tension between India and Pakistan.