Bush's booby traps for Obama

[babylonsister]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks30-2008oct30,0,1777682.column

Bush's booby traps for Obama
The Bush administration is leaving behind foreign policy tripwires that could blow up on the next president.
Rosa Brooks
October 30, 2008

snip//

We know from Iraq that countering insurgencies requires a long, hard slog -- success not guaranteed -- and that the presence of foreign troops can help fuel nationalist insurgencies. More troops in Afghanistan might have turned things around if those troops -- and a less stingy reconstruction package -- had arrived five years ago, when Afghan hopes were high. But after years of Bush administration malfeasance, increasing U.S. troop levels without an accompanying dramatic shift in regional strategy risks turning Afghanistan into another Iraq.

Or worse, because the Afghan booby trap is wired tightly to the Pakistan booby trap. Pakistan is the proud but horrifyingly unstable possessor of a nuclear arsenal. If the escalating conflicts in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border regions spin out of control, we could end up in another Iraq-like situation -- only with weapons of mass destruction in the mix for real this time.

Increasingly, U.S. forces have sought to reduce violence inside Afghanistan by staging cross-border counterattacks against suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda targets based inside Pakistan. Tactically, there's some logic to this. Strategically, not so much.

Pakistan has never been a paragon of stability, and years of unconditional Bush administration military aid for Pervez Musharraf's repressive government made things worse. Now, with the Bush administration increasingly violating Pakistani sovereignty with cross-border strikes, relations between the United States and the new government of Asif Ali Zardari are more tense than ever.

In principle, Obama agrees that strikes inside Pakistan may at times be justified -- but experts close to him suggest that many of the strikes authorized by the Bush White House probably wouldn't have passed muster for Obama. But that may not matter. Like it or not, Obama will inherit a situation in which U.S. credibility and popularity in Pakistan are close to zero and the Pakistani government is only barely in control.

It's a situation that's virtually designed to blow up in his face.

Some booby traps left by departing administrations are harmless. Clinton pranksters allegedly removed all the "W" keys from White House computer keyboards in January 2001, and outbound Bush 41 staffers reportedly left drawers full of pencils cut down to inch-long stubs. But no one got hurt.

If we can someday say the same about the booby traps this Bush administration is leaving behind, we'll be very lucky.

[Frustratedlady]

1. Is it possible the exit of Bush will be so wonderful to the world,

things will settle down? It seems a lot of the unrest and anger is personal toward Bush. Maybe Obama will get the roses the Bush administration dreamed of?

Just sayin'.

[driver8]

2. The past 8 years are one giant booby trap...

one giant clusterfuck, actually.

I feel bad that Obama has to take over this shitstorm -- but if anyone can handle it, it is Obama!

[jakem]

3. There is only one gracious exit strategy for b*sh-