Obama's bowed-up foreign policy

DallasMorningViews | Rod Dreher:

“Hillary Clinton effectively challenged Barack Obama's manhood in the last debate, when she cast his willingness to sit down and talk to America's enemies as naive. Now Obama has fought back, saying that as president, he'd consider sending US troops into Pakistan to fight al Qaeda. Obama would have the United States invade a nuclear-armed Islamic country and humiliate a government that, however weak, is an American ally? Good grief, maybe he really is as naive as Hillary says.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Launching military operations in a nuclear-armed Islamic country is highly risky, with or without the country's dictator supporting you. But Senator Obama has not done that. He has suggested that the option would not be ruled out in an Obama administration. That's saber-rattling. Saber-rattling itself is a risky tactic to use, but wielded skillfully, it can prevent war rather than initiate it.

Should we give Obama the benefit of the doubt and trust that he would wield the saber skillfully, not recklessly? I might have been inclined to say yes, if not for the sad example of George W Bush. Congress voted authorization for him to go to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Some considered the authorization to be a saber for Bush to rattle. Bush took it as an excuse to quit relying on diplomacy and sanctions, in other words, to quit relying on saber rattling, and actually go to war.

I'd like to think Obama wouldn't make the same mistake, but who knows. I'll be much less trusting of the basic wisdom of our political leaders this time around.