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MAY 11, 2011 |
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By Matthew Continetti |
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COLD OPEN |
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Everyone seems to agree that the killing of Osama bin Laden will put to rest the notion that President Obama is indecisive. I don't know what they're talking about. President Obama has seemed to me to be perfectly capable of making decisions ever since he ordered the use of deadly force against Somali pirates in 2009. Obama's problem isn't a lack of decision-making capability. It's that almost all of the decisions he makes are wrong.
Obama's "leading from behind" during the Arab Awakening, for example, is less an instance of dithering than a concerted policy not to appear "imperialistic." In the final analysis, Obama did not miss the opportunity to support the Green Revolution in Iran in the summer of 2009 because he was playing the "To be or not to be" game. He made a conscious decision to maintain relations with the illegitimate government in Tehran because he feared a replay of the 1953 Mossadegh affair. Similarly today, the Obama administration downplays the horror in Syria not because it can't make up its mind but because it is theologically committed to the absurd idea that Bashar Assad could play a role in a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
Obama has made plenty of domestic-policy decisions, too. And almost all of them have been terrible. The stimulus, the auto bailout, health care, "green energy" industrial policy, devaluing the currency, unleashing the EPA—none of these initiatives has promoted the cause of economic growth. Obama's decision to demagogue Paul Ryan's budget rather than rein in the deficit endangers our country's future. His education and parenting initiatives seem reasonable, if you believe the federal government has a role in education or parenting. I'm increasingly of the opinion that it does not.
Obama's best decisions are those that continue or build upon the policies of his predecessor: preventive detention, rendition, warrantless surveillance, drone strikes, and counterinsurgency and surge of troops in Afghanistan. Yet there's no reason why the 2012 Republican nominee can't acknowledge the president's good choices—while observing that they are few and far between. |
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LOOKING BACK |
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"It took a decade for the United States to recover from Nixon's misadministration. Ronald Reagan accepted a fierce two-year recession to squeeze out the inflation Nixon had fed and abolished price controls that had made the energy shortage possible. He slowed the growth in domestic spending that Nixon had tolerated and cut the tax rates that Nixon's inflation had made so onerous. By the mid-1980s, the value of the dollar had stabilized at home and abroad and the economy was again growing without inflation. It was a breathtaking, if imperfect, achievement. And at every step along the way, Reagan was accused—often by economists who had abetted the Nixon debacle—of ideological fanaticism, of rigidity, of refusing to heed the wise counsel of the sensible center."
—David Frum, "Nixonomics," from our September 21, 1998, issue.
Remember you get full access to THE WEEKLY STANDARD archive when you subscribe. |
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FROM THE DESKTOP |
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Matt Labash's guide to the Republican primary
Take the Pew Research Center's political quiz
Christopher Caldwell on why intellectuals are lousy politicians
George Will turns 70
How much do economists really know about the economy? |
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK (SO FAR!) |
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"The makers of the American Revolution did not think themselves in possession of the simple and complete political truth, capable of instant application as a panacea for government. They claimed possession of only half the truth, namely, the self-evident truth that equal freedom must be the foundation of all political society. And in the name of that equal freedom they made half a revolution. But, soberly and moderately, they left open the question of institutions of government. These they knew would have to be forged from old materials, perhaps worked and reworked, and with a cool awareness that the new American institutions would be subject still to perennial human frailty and folly."
—Martin Diamond, "The Revolution of Sober Expectations," from America's Continuing Revolution (AEI: 1973, 1974, 1975), p. 32-33. |
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LOOKING AHEAD |
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Coming up in THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Andrew Ferguson profiles dramatist David Mamet, whose next book may shock the Hollywood left. Ann Marlowe reports from Benghazi, headquarters of the Libyan rebellion against Muammar Qaddafi. And John Kienker reviews a new study of Abraham Lincoln's political rhetoric. |
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PARTING SHOT |
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Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn's piece in the current issue is a wake-up call. They run through the evidence of Pakistan's complicity in international terrorism, with damning results. As a wise friend said to me in a recent email: "We are not at war with the 'Taliban' or al Qaeda or Laskar e Taiba, but with a network of networks sponsored and sustained by elements of the Pakistani state."
What to do? Max Boot and Charles Krauthammer have each floated the idea of an ultimatum: Tell the Pakistani government to crack down on terror or face the end of American aid. But there are problems with such a policy: Parts of the Pakistani government actually do cooperate with America. And alienating the entire Pakistani regime may be worse than the status quo.
Let me offer a different approach: First, tie aid to Pakistan to measurable benchmarks in the war against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and jihadism. Congress inserts benchmarks for aid to Iraq and Afghanistan—why not do the same here?
Meanwhile, instruct the Director of National Intelligence to go to war with those elements of the Pakistani military-intelligence apparatus allied with radicalism. This would be a shadow war, conducted with all the operational secrecy and deception involved in the killing of bin Laden. ISI operatives would disappear. ISI safehouses and madrassas would be demolished. A massive commitment of human and technological intelligence would expose and defang the hitherto secret world of Pakistan's military-espionage establishment.
Pakistan has been playing a double game with the United States. Maybe it's time we played a double game with Pakistan, too.
See you next week. And don't forget you can write me at editor@weeklystandard.com.
--Matthew Continetti
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