PrintFebruary 27, 2009
Time To Set Aside Childish Things
Does our Commander-in-Chief lie awake at night and worry about Iran and the bomb or Pakistan and the bomb? Judging by his weak-kneed supplications to the Iranians, his tepid response to provocations and the anti-Israel tendencies of some of his appointees, one would think not. The Wall Street Journal reviews a new book, 7 Deadly Scenarios, by Andrew F. Krepinevich, and points out the enormity of the threat:
As the title suggests, Mr. Krepinevich's concern is with the worst that can plausibly happen to the U.S., geopolitically speaking, within the next decade. What's plausible? Well, Manhattan drowning under a global-warming induced flood isn't, at least in this volume. But Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamic extremists is plausible. (Indeed, to judge from the Taliban's recent territorial gains in Pakistan, it may happen sooner than Mr. Krepinevich thinks.) Also plausible are nuclear bombs being detonated in American cities, without there being anyone against whom we can retaliate.
Since Obama prefers to focus on his domestic agenda, appeasement seems to be the de facto approach on foreign affairs, and the nuclear threat from Iran, Pakistan, or rogue terrorists is not receiving full attention. Thomas Sowell expands on the theme in NRO:
...we are preoccupied with the pay of corporate executives while the leading terrorist-sponsoring nation on earth is moving steadily toward creating nuclear bombs. Does anyone imagine that we will care what anyone's paycheck is when we see an American city in radioactive ruins? Yet the only serious obstacle to that happening is that the Israelis may disregard the lofty blather coming out of the White House and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities before the Iranian fanatics can destroy Israel.
The most solemn duty of the president is to protect the nation from her enemies. During the past seven years, George Bush has been steadfast in that mission, and our enemies have known that a provocation would earn a response from us. By contrast, Obama has demonstrated ambivalence about defending our vital interests, and has farmed out the administration of foreign policy, which he appears to view as a distraction from his real mission of domestic transformation. Obama is treating the defense budget as just another source of cuts he can use to finance his social engineering programs. He met with the joint chiefs a few weeks ago, and asked them to identify cuts of more than ten per cent in defense spending. Barney Frank has suggested defense be cut by twenty-five per cent. The world is no less dangerous because we choose to look away, and our enemies no doubt continue to plot our demise. Obama is playing a very dangerous game in appeasing our adversaries, who will if anything be emboldened by their perception of the president as weak on defense.
In his inauguration speech, Obama said "it is time to set aside childish things." It is time for our commander-in-chief to set aside the naive notion that our enemies will play nice with us, and it is time for him to get serious about the frightening reality of terror and nuclear weapons.
