Academic

"We must all stand together to fight out this menace."

By Gordon Smith, Christine, Hurt, Vic Fleischer, Fred Tung, Lisa Fairfax, David Zaring

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan?s president, appeals to India?s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, not to strike out at Pakistan, even if the Mumbai terrorists are linked to Pakistan. Zardari is desperate:

The architects of this calamity in Mumbai have managed to raise a threat on our other (eastern) border. As we have these people (militants) on the run along our western border (with Afghanistan), our attention is being diverted at this critical time.

In other news, President-elect Obama will announce his new foreign policy team on Monday. Before this latest news from India, Obama had big ideas about foreign policy:

The shift would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states. However, it is unclear whether the financing would be shifted from the Pentagon; Mr. Obama has also committed to increasing the number of American combat troops.Whether they can make the change ? one that Mr. Obama started talking about in the summer of 2007, when his candidacy was a long shot at best ? ?will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,? one of his senior advisers said recently.

The great foreign policy experiment.

Like so many other ideas floated during this campaign, this one would cost a lot of money. Especially if new ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, has her way and we start taking "dramatic action" against genocide. Again.

Preventing conflicts, rebuilding failed states, and taking dramatic action against genocide all seem like winning ideas, but with bailouts and pleas for bailouts springing up right and left -- and now potentially India v. Pakistan -- you have to wonder about the feasibility of being proactive.

Full post as published by Conglomerate on December 01, 2008 (boomark / email).