Providing proof that he’s unfit for commander-in-chief duties, Barack Obama threatened a military strike inside Pakistan. Obama also threatened to withhold US foreign aid money if Pervez Musharraf doesn’t do more to kill terrorists:

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

Obama might as well have said that he’d turn Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile over to radical Islamic jihadists if Musharraf didn’t do more. These types of threats don’t help a leader who’s walking on eggshells, especially after he’s survived numerous assassination attempts. Cutting off aid to Pakistan would unnecessarily cause turmoil inside Pakistan, turmoil that might well topple that shaky government.

Clearly, Obama is saying this to sound tough. He isn’t sounding tough; he’s sounding terribly naive. He certainly isn’t sounding like a commander-in-chief. This isn’t a time for on the job training. It’s time for someone who’s thought his way through the implications of his policies.

It isn’t clear that Obama has thought through the fact that he’d be giving Taliban sympathizers in Pakistan the ammunition to topple an American ally in a most troubled part of the world. What happens if someone like the Taliban gets their hands on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons? They’d be able to threaten anyone in the Middle East. They’d certainly be able to threaten India. They could destabilize the entire region.

Those are a few of the possibilities should a President Obama follow through on this threat. The good news is that Democrats never follow through on their campaign promises.

Obama’s speech was a condemnation of President Bush’s leadership in the war on terror. He said the focus on Iraq has left Americans in more danger than before Sept. 11, and that Bush has misrepresented the enemy as Iraqis who are fighting a civil war instead of the terrorists responsible for the attacks six years ago.

One thing about this makes sense. Obama knows that he’s got to do something to pull more nutroots for him to have any chance of winning. Attacking President Bush makes good political sense even though it makes no sense in the real world.

Technorati Tags: Obama, Taliban, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan, Nuclear Weapons, India, Middle East, President Bush

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

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1. The Senator’s plan has already drawn glowing reviews from leading foreign policy experts.

   Lee Hamilton, former Democratic Congressman, Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, Co-Chair of the Iraq Study Group, Member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council:

   Senator Obama presented a thoughtful, substantive and comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy. This is an important contribution to the national dialogue on this leading issue.

   Major General Scott Gration (USAF-Ret); Commander, Operation Iraqi Freedom’s Task Force West; Director Strategy Policy and Assessments, United States European Command:

   Defending America will require taking the fight to the terrorists, and drying up support for terrorism and extremism worldwide. Senator Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy shows that he is committed to developing the capabilities required to defeat terrorists on the field of battle, and that he has the vision to defeat the terrorists in the battle of ideas.

   Samantha Power; author of A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide; Founding Executive Director, Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy:

   At a time when Americans are despairing over the Bush Administration’s handling of terrorism, Barack Obama has offered us a smart, tough and principled way forward. Where Bush overstretched our armed forces and sent them into an unnecessary war, Obama would heed the military’s pleas for counterinsurgency resources and beefed-up civilian capacity. Where Bush lumped US foes together, Obama would pry them apart. And where Bush threw out the rule-book, Obama would again make America a country that practices what it preaches.

   http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CpHR

   Comment by jb1125 — August 2, 2007 @ 2:15 am

2. You can bet Hillary Clinton is worried. I predict that the polls will show dramatic movement as a result of Obama’s principled stand.

   They could destabilize the entire region.

   As if that isn’t what we’ve already done? It’s coming out that we’ve been supplying Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates with billions of dollars in arms, further sending massive aid to Egypt and Isreal. What is Bush planning? Could he really be considering invading or bombing Iran?

   Obama’s smart speech is sounding better by the minute.

   Comment by Rocky — August 2, 2007 @ 11:11 pm