Speak Loudly But Carry a Small Stick

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He may have won the health care war, but Obama has not really done much more. This is particularly true in foreign affairs. Granted Bush put us in a terrible spot, but Obama is not succeeding at getting us out of that spot by warning countries to shape up and doing nothing about it except to back off somewhat sheepishly. Dilip Hiro thinks that we are already on the declining slope of world power. His article in TomDispatch discusses five rather important examples of Obama's flip-flopping: Honduras, China, Brazil, Israel and Afghanistan. Read it!

Still Pushing

Lawrence Korb and Caroline Wadhams had an op-ed in the Boston Globe yesterday. It advanced the same argument they made back in the Fall - we need to focus more on Afghanistan. Their argument is summed up in this quote from the op-ed:

The Bush administration is in this position because it has forgotten the answers to several key questions. Where did the Sept. 11 attacks originate? Where is Al Qaeda's key leadership currently located? Which US military mission is authorized by the United Nations and NATO? In which theater are more than half of the troops supplied by other nations? In which theater are US casualties lower than its partners? Which country's people want the United States to stay and help? Finally, in which theater does the United States have a greater chance of succeeding?

They also point out the stupidity of having six times as many troops in Afghanistan and spending in Afghanistan a small fraction of that which we are spending in Iraq. And they ask the question of why all the Western troops are nor under a single command.

Succeeding in Afghanistan

We tend to be focused almost exclusively on Iraq, but Lawrence Korb and Caroline Wadhams think that Afghanistan is at least, if not more, important and, surprisingly, is a war that we can win, if you define 'winning' as ousting Al Qaeda and building a stable, secure country. Afghanistan has a number of advantages over Iraq:

• The government represents the people and is supported by a majority.
• We actually have allies in Afghanistan who number almost half of the total troops there.
• There is little, if any, sectarianism.
• Polls seem to show support for us and against the Taliban.

I'm not as sure as Korb and Wadhams of the effectiveness of the NATO forces that are there; one gets the impression that they are not overly effective or that there are enough of them there.

Clearly, things have gotten worse there over the past couple of years, but the authors feel that we can succeed if we change our approach and start paying attention to the country by increasing our support. Specifically, they urge us to

• Increase the number of troops (including moving some from Iraq) and make sure there is enough equipment for all the troops.
• Increase our assistance in reconstruction tasks, but make sure we have an inspector general as focused as Stuart Bowen is with Iraq.
• Figure out a better way to interdict narcotics trafficking, one which does not penalize the farmers.
• Get more involved in shutting down the Pakistan strongholds of the Taliban, but not to the point of invasion.
• Help to improve the government.

These are sound ideas, but I doubt our leaders will do anything, as they are fixated on Iraq.