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In the Wall Street Journal, Dan Senor and Peter Wehner urge Republicans to back Obama on Afghanistan.
…The president deserves credit for his commitment earlier this year to order an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, as well as his decision to act on the recommendation of Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace the U.S. commander in Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
These were tough and courageous decisions. The president’s actions have clearly unsettled some members of his own party, who hoped he would begin to unwind America’s commitment in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama not only ignored their counsel; he doubled down his commitment. There should therefore be no stronger advocates for Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy than the GOP.
The war in Afghanistan is a crucial part of America’s broader struggle against militant Islam. If we were to fail in Afghanistan, it would have calamitous consequences for both Pakistan and American credibility. It would consign the people of Afghanistan to misery and hopelessness. And Afghanistan would once again become home to a lethal mix of terrorists and insurgents and a launching point for attacks against Western and U.S. interests. Neighboring governments—especially Pakistan’s with its nuclear weapons—could quickly be destabilized and collapse.
Progress and eventual success in Afghanistan—which is difficult but doable—would, when combined with a similar outcome in Iraq, constitute a devastating blow against jihadists and help stabilize a vital and volatile region.
…In addition, indifference or outright opposition to the war would smack of hypocrisy, given the Republican Party’s strong (and we believe admirable) support for President Bush’s post-9/11 policies, its robust support for America’s democratic allies, and its opposition to rogue regimes that threaten American interests. Republicans should stand for engagement with, rather than isolation from, the world. Strongly supporting the president on Afghanistan would also be a sign of grace on the part of Republicans. We know all too well how damaging it was to American foreign policy to face an opposition that was driven by partisan fury against our commander in chief. Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush. …
Jennifer Rubin comments on Fred Kagan’s article in the Wall Street Journal about the importance of the war in Afghanistan.
Fred Kagan sets out the strategic case for the war in Afghanistan in a must-read piece in the Wall Street Journal. He makes clear that the task at hand ”will be difficult” but is “no fool’s errand.” He does not shy away from examining the errors of the past, but his focus is on why we must persist in waging an increasingly unpopular war.
He explains:
Critics of the war have suggested we should draw down our troops and force Pakistan to play a larger role in eliminating radical extremists. American concerns about al Qaeda and Taliban operating from Pakistani bases have led to the conventional wisdom that Pakistan matters to the U.S. because of what it could do to help—or hurt—in Afghanistan. The conventional wisdom is wrong as usual.
Pakistan is important because it is a country of 180 million Muslims with nuclear weapons and multiple terrorist groups engaged in a mini-arms race and periodic military encounters with India—the world’s most populous state and one of America’s most important economic and strategic partners. Pakistan has made remarkable progress over the last year in its efforts against Islamist insurgent groups that threatened to destroy it. But the fight against those groups takes place on both sides of the border. The debate over whether to commit the resources necessary to succeed in Afghanistan must recognize the extreme danger that a withdrawal or failure in Afghanistan would pose to the stability of Pakistan. …
Jennifer Rubin also comments on the Carter trip to the Middle East.
Jimmy Carter brings us his report, fresh from his Middle East visit with his fellow ”Elders,” including the Medal of Freedom prize-winning duo of Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson. Carter and crew go to the Middle East and see “despair.”
Not the despair of Jews in Israel who would like to live in peace with their neighbors and have tried repeatedly to give the Palestinians their own state. Not the despair of victims of Hamas violence or of honor killings. Not the despair of the Palestinian people who would like a government free from corruption. Not the despair of Jews who find it incomprehensible that teaching the Holocaust is considered to be a human-rights violation by Hamas. Not the despair of Israel and its neighbors who are contemplating a nuclear-armed Iran and a timid U.S. response. And certainly not the despair that Israelis must feel as a U.S. administration renounces past obligations and delights in picking a fight with its ally.
No, all Carter sees and all he writes about (I know, you’ll be shocked) is the “despair that settlement expansion is continuing apace.” And he divines that Israel is bent on a one-state solution, aiming to “colonize” East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Using unmistakable Holocaust terminology, he terms Gaza a “ghetto.” How perfectly Carter-esque. And Robinson-esque. (Anyone in the White House still think that Medal of Freedom thing was a grand idea?) …
Also in Contentions, Rick Richman fills us in on another mind-blowing foreign policy decision, this time concerning Honduras.
…The State Department announced today it has formally determined that what happened on June 28 in Honduras was a “coup d’etat” requiring the termination under U.S. law of a broad range of assistance to the poverty-stricken country. The announcement cites “the continued resistance to the adoption of the San Jose Accord by the de facto regime and continuing failure to restore democratic, constitutional rule to Honduras.”
The San Jose Accord would require Honduras to ignore multiple rulings by its Supreme Court that the removal of former President Zelaya was constitutional (and done pursuant to its order, not by military action taken without prior legal authorization). It would require Honduras to act contrary to the consensus of all organs of the Honduran government, including its Congress and representatives of the church and civil society—a consensus communicated to the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States when they visited Honduras on August 24-25 and heard from them all.
It is a strange definition of coup d’etat that includes action authorized by the Honduran Supreme Court, ratified by its Congress, and supported by a consensus of its political parties and civil society. As for the “continuing failure to restore democratic, constitutional rule,” there is an election scheduled for November. A vote of the people is not generally considered characteristic of a coup d’etat, and returning Zelaya to serve a few more months (since even he now concedes he cannot hold a “referendum” to allow him to serve longer) would not seem necessary to “restore democratic, constitutional rule.” …
Abe Greenwald has choice words for the State Department’s inappropriate response to Honduras.
Hillary Clinton has given a lovely gift to Honduran strongman Manuel Zelaya: “the State Department has announced it will cut aid to Honduras, contingent upon the return to office of ousted President Manuel Zelaya, with whom Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Thursday.”
So we’ll cut off aid to a democratic country in order to punish it for defending its democracy. How many ways, big and small, does this shame the United States?
It vitiates what little enthusiasm President Obama has shown for the promotion of democracy around the globe. Who cares if he said in Ghana that “governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not.” He respects the will of the ruler who creates his own self-sustaining rules. …
…We’re no longer merely apologizing to the bad guys; we’re encouraging them.
In the Wall Street Journal, John Fund interviews David Walker, the GAO head under Clinton and Bush. Mr. Walker says the deficits are coming.
…Mr. Walker’s own speeches are vivid and clear. “We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit,” he tells one group. “We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease.”
Mr. Walker identifies the disease as having a basic cause: “Washington is totally out of touch and out of control,” he sighs. “There is political courage there, but there is far more political careerism and people dodging real solutions.” He identifies entrenched incumbency as a real obstacle to change. “Members of Congress ensure they have gerrymandered seats where they pick the voters rather than the voters picking them and then they pass out money to special interests who then make sure they have so much money that no one can easily challenge them,” he laments. He believes gerrymandering should be curbed and term limits imposed if for no other reason than to inject some new blood into the system. On campaign finance, he supports a narrow constitutional amendment that would bar congressional candidates from accepting contributions from people who can’t vote for them: “If people can’t vote in a district not their own, should we allow them to spend unlimited money on behalf of someone across the country?” …
…He suggests giving presidents the power to make line-item cuts in budgets that would then require a majority vote in Congress to override. He would also want private-sector accounting standards extended to pensions, health programs and environmental costs. “Social Security reform is a layup, much easier than Medicare,” he told me. He believes gradual increases in the retirement age, a modest change in cost-of-living payments and raising the cap on income subject to payroll taxes would solve its long-term problems. …
Stuart Taylor, in the National Journal, thinks that the Justice Department’s review of terrorist interrogations will not lead to prosecutions.
…The bottom line is that it would be exceedingly difficult for Holder and Obama to justify going after low-level CIA officials for abusing detainees in ways no more brutal than the methods approved by the high-level officials who will apparently be given a pass as long as they heeded Justice’s legal guidance.
And it would be impossible for Holder and Obama to go after the Bush team — an unprecedented criminalization by one administration of its predecessor’s national security policies — without antagonizing most of the 75 percent of voters who call themselves conservative or moderate.
Such a move would tear the country apart, doom Obama’s ambitious legislative agenda, and possibly make him a one-term president. All for the sake of bringing prosecutions with virtually no chance of convictions.
Surely Holder and Obama understand this. And neither seems inclined to commit political suicide.
In Contentions, Peter Wehner comments on the Obamacare re-launch.
…the president will give a speech to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday, in an effort to “re-launch” ObamaCare. His words will soothe our fears and heal the wounds caused by what Politico rightly calls a “brutal August recess.” So the idea, it appears, is to have Obama continue to say what he’s been saying—but to say it more often and more “prescriptively.” The underlying assumption is the public just hasn’t heard enough from Barack Obama on health care.
If Obama really believes this is the reason his health-care effort is in critical condition, then he has lost touch with reality. Obama’s health-care ambitions are being shattered because what he wants to do would make things worse rather than better, and costlier rather than cheaper. President Obama is attempting to sell a product that is fundamentally defective and increasingly radioactive. Even if Team Obama were doing everything right—and it is not—it would find itself in a precarious position. It is reality, including numerous CBO analyses, that is doing the damage. Public relations has very little to do with it. …
John Carney in the blog Business Insider says the prez made the typical leftist mistake of economic determinism when he expected the GOP to line up behind big pharma and the insurance industry as they sold out.
… The Obama administration “expended great effort to line up the support of health-care insurers, pharmaceutical makers and care providers, believing that by keeping them around the table, they could win over Republicans and stop the kind of industry-led attacks that helped sink the Clinton plan,” writes the Journal team.
It was supposed to be a simple formula. Win over the health care industry shepherd, and the Republican will follow like sheep. But it didn’t work.
What seems to have gone wrong can be described as a failure of the imagination: Obama’s administration just never believed Republicans would stand up for their limited government principles if that meant opposing business interests. They were apparently assuming that Republicans and conservatives could be won over by winning over “business interests,” as if free market and anti-government positions were just rhetorical cover for policy making at the behest of business. …
Dorothy Rabinowitz reviews a couple of things we might want to watch on TV.
The first soundheralding the arrival of the brand new “Melrose Place” (Tuesday, 9-10 p.m. EDT, on the CW)—the noise of an incessantly ringing cellphone— brings us up to date nicely. So does the frantic text-messaging of the premiere episode’s opening moments— dispatches sent by the diabolical Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton), well known to followers of the old “Melrose Place” as the landlady intimately ensnarled in the lives of the 20-something tenants there. In the old series, which ran from 1992 to 1999, land-line phones were still essential. Life and all vital connections managed to proceed, furthermore, without text-messaging. Nothing, though, can bring home the difference between that ’90s culture and today’s more starkly than those original episodes, where characters utter lines like “he wrote me a letter every single week.” Wrote a letter? In the “Melrose Place” of today, such a reference would have the quaintness of something from the Civil War era, whenever that was. …
David Harsanyi has fun with the upcoming Presidential address to schoolchildren.
…Moreover, if your child is incapable of handling a 20-minute haranguing from a self-important public servant, they will be tragically unprepared for the new world. (Who do you think they will be dealing with when they need that hip replacement in 60 years?) …
…Why should we deny that he can elevate our schoolchildren from the abyss so they can finally, after decades of neglect, learn again? And who better to dictate the lesson plan than the president’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, a man who left a Chicago school district with a meager 40 percent dropout rate?
Honestly, if I’m going to be badgered and browbeat by the president every day, kids should suffer a bit as well. The president has been treating the American people like schoolchildren for more than seven months — with another “major address” on health care coming right after he talks to the kids.
When my own brood comes home next week, I’ll explain that in this remarkable nation, anyone can become president — though, hopefully, they’ll choose something more constructive…