Pakistan Questions

Everyone seems to be rambling a bit in response to Charlie Gibson's question about Pakistan. It seems to me that the main thing to say about a hypothetical scenario where in radicals somehow seize control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons is that one of the first responsibilities of a President faced with a crisis in Pakistan would be to make sure that doesn't happen. Once it does happen, obviously all the options look bad.

John Edwards pivoted a bit to the broader issue of non-proliferation policy where he gave a fantastic answer about the need to combine short-term efforts with a long-term commitment to "rid the world of nuclear weapons" as part of a broad push to revitalize the non-proliferation framework.

On his second go-round Barack Obama gets to drive home the point that the Iraq War is one of the major reasons that our policy in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area has gotten so screwed up. This is the kind of strategic-level argument that any Democrat is going to need to make against a Republican who can't be specifically tied to the details of Bush's inept Iraq policy.

UPDATE: Given a second, clearer shot at the nuclear proliferation issue Edwards and Obama both offered great responses. Clinton's decision to put bureaucratic reorganization of the non-proliferation apparatus -- rather than substantive shifts in policy -- struck me as a bit odd, but perhaps in line with her broader argument about experience. She knows the nitty-gritty details of executive branch organization.

Comments

Hillary Clinton is fucking brilliant. She is smart enough to drill down to the details of what is important ie, have missles ready to go and tell Pakistan once their are launched due to tense situation between India and Pakistan.

Posted by ken | January 5, 2008 9:20 PM

Why is Charlie asking Obama first, and HRC last? This strategy favors HRC.

ABC promo before debate had Diane and George pro-HRC.

Why has no one mentioned that George worked for Clintons in AK and in DC?

Posted by eorse | January 5, 2008 9:20 PM

Edwards' position of "ridding" the world of nuclear weapons is beyond naive. It is ridiculous. As nice it would be, it is impossible.

Posted by waka waka | January 5, 2008 9:23 PM

JRE is nailing these questions--his answer on the nuke one was great.

Obama's answer was forgettable. Which would have been a problem, except that HRC's answer on "what do you do on day 2 after a terror attack was likewise pretty weak. And what the heck??? She's adopting "there is no safe haven"--isn't that George Bush's position?

Craziness.

Posted by anonymiss | January 5, 2008 9:24 PM

In response to a question of what a pres. should do after a nuclear attack, Clinton just made reference to a "suitcase nuke." THEY DO NOT EXIST! This is not "24." Clinton needs to study up. But luckily she won't win the Dem. nomination, so it doesn't really matter. But still!

Posted by waka waka | January 5, 2008 9:31 PM

Why are people treating this as though nuclear weapons are these tiny things which could be smuggled like a shoebox?

Good god, we monitored the f***ing Soviet nuclear arsenal in microscopic detail for years.

Do people think that if the Pakistan government falls into chaos that we're too f***ing stupid to have every f***ing inch of border air and sea patrolled to keep any possible nuclear movement controlled? Do people think they're going to simply drive them out of India? What?

Posted by El Cid | January 5, 2008 9:49 PM

Why has no one mentioned that George worked for Clintons in AK and in DC?

Because it's an old and very complicated story, it would take a five minute speech and you would come away realizing it didn't matter. He did not leave them on happy terms and some things he did and said afterwards were not exactly "pro-Clintons". He left the Clinton White House burned out and sick of them and after a demotion because they were unhappy with his results as communications director. He wrote a book on his experiences in 1999. There is no public evidence he favors them; he says in this 2002 interview that he ran into Bill Clinton a few months before for the first time since 1998 and that he was "civil" and "polite."

Posted by Anonymous | January 5, 2008 10:20 PM

Hey, I have a wild idea-- how about someone say that Pakistan is a foreign country, which has a right to self-determination, and that it's national emergency should play out according to the dictates of its people and its government, rather than through the actions of a country thousands of miles away?

Whoops! There I go again, being a crazy lefty!

Posted by Freddie | January 5, 2008 10:30 PM

Somebody should ask who they think killed Bhutto.

Because there's a theory now around that says Dick Cheney made a deal with Musharraf that Washington would turn a "blind eye" to anything that happens in Pakistan - or to Bhutto - as long as the US gets to put US Special Forces troops IN Pakistan next year.

Another interesting fact is that Bhutto made the claim in an interview that Mullah Omar killed Osama bin Laden some time ago - which makes the recent bin Laden tapes seriously suspect, if there's any reason to believe that.

Bhutto also allegedly was going to provide information to US Congressmen that US surveillance technology was going to be provided to Musharraf to help rig the upcoming elections.

In any event, Bhutto was proving to be more of a wild card in the mix than Washington wanted, despite having set her come back up - so it was time to go to "Plan B".

Now, if the end result is that US troops go into Pakistan next year - ostensibly for "training" purposes, natch - by end of the year, things could be even worse in Pakistan than they are now.

Supposedly US Special Forces are on alert in Afghanistan right now, in case the Musharraf government gets any more shaky.

I think next year in Pakistan we're going to see Musharraf reduced to the level of Maliki in Iraq - a pure US puppet supported only by the presence of US troops in Pakistan, "democracy" be damned - just as it is in Iraq.

And the end result will be even worse than Iraq.

In particular, there aren't enough US troops anywhere to deal with an imploded Pakistan - yet that is exactly what will happen if ANY US troops are installed in Pakistan, training excuse or not.

Neither the Pakistani military, the ISI, or the overwhelming majority of the Pakistani population want ANY US troops in Pakistan, combat role or not.

The situation in Pakistan could go utterly out of control next year if Bush and Cheney are at the helm. This could even derail Iran as the next big Bush disaster. I'm not sure if it will be a bigger disaster than Iran would be - you could still get an oil spike from a Pakistan collapse, but at least Iranian oil would be flowing - but if it ends up with thousands of US troops fighting half the Pakistani population and the Islamists get hold of the nukes, well, it doesn't look good.

I recently predicted Pakistan would be in crisis within five years.

Well, if Bush and Cheney make the wrong moves next year, I'll have to update that to within the next 12-24 months.

Bush and Cheney are almost certainly going to make some REALLY bad moves in Pakistan.

And I haven't heard anything intelligent from any of the candidates on the issue of Pakistan.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 5, 2008 10:55 PM

>>She knows the nitty-gritty details of executive branch organization.

Yes, of course: she was a president's wife after all.

Posted by jim | January 5, 2008 11:49 PM

Gibson mentions without going into details that experts estimate that there is a thirty percent chance of a nuclear weapon being detonated in an American city in the next ten years. Does anybody have any idea where this figure comes from? It seems to me to be a) way too high and b) completely uncomputable. I'd be curious to see what the statistical methodology that churns out this percentage looks like.

Posted by hw | January 6, 2008 12:35 AM

"John Edwards pivoted a bit to the broader issue of non-proliferation policy where he gave a fantastic answer about the need to combine short-term efforts with a long-term commitment to "rid the world of nuclear weapons" as part of a broad push to revitalize the non-proliferation framework."

That was a fantastic answer? If he believes it, it was deeply stupid. If he's not stupid, then it's deeply dishonest. There is no way to "rid the world of nuclear weapons" - at no point in history has a technology that has been discovered been abandoned voluntarily, and it's not about to start now.

How do you propose to convince, say, Russia - a nation facing a demographic nightmare - to give up nukes? If you believe his proposal is possible, let me stop by your house and show you a number of great real estate proposals I'm sure you'll also like.

Posted by James Robertson | January 6, 2008 12:58 AM

"Gibson mentions without going into details that experts estimate that there is a thirty percent chance of a nuclear weapon being detonated in an American city in the next ten years. Does anybody have any idea where this figure comes from? It seems to me to be a) way too high and b) completely uncomputable. I'd be curious to see what the statistical methodology that churns out this percentage looks like.

Posted by hw | January 6, 2008 12:35 AM"

It does seem like this never gets revised. It seems like "experts" were saying the same thing ten years ago.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is relatively small. In addition, the individual components to each nuke are kept in several sites so that if terrorists seize one site, they can't really do anything with what they get there. They would have to seize multiple sites and the transportation lines between the sites to make a nuke.

I'm not overly impressed with Clinton's answer. She's running on experience, so she wants to highlight that she knows that there are certain bureaucratic mechanisms, but this isn't revolutionary. Any undergrad who takes a course on the executive branch or something can do this stuff. She just has the incentive to make it seem like she has esoteric knowledge. It's a bit like watching somebody who read Shakespearean cliff notes act like they are a scholar of Shakespeare's works.

Posted by Reality Man | January 6, 2008 2:49 AM

It may be impossible to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Bit it will be very possible for the next American president to reduce the numbers by say 90%, and rid the world of all hydrogen bombs.

So please vote for a candidate that wants to rid the world of nukes. But the number of nuclear bombs can can be reduced, if only America, which has the biggest arsenal, takes the lead.

Posted by Mattias | January 6, 2008 6:12 AM

Edwards is the best foreign policy expert. No other candidate comes close. His comment on Pakistan was fantastic. Americans, vote this man!

Posted by Ossi | January 6, 2008 9:34 AM

Edwards gives the clearest, most concise answers each and every time. Clinton and Obama on the other hand, could come up with NO gaff they've made so far that they'd like to retract. Man, that smacks of ol' GW when he could not recall ever having made a mistake during his first four years!
At least Edwards AND Richardson could reply to a simple question. Hillary could only mumble something about leaving it to others to judge if she's been something other than perfect! What a loser!!!

Posted by BobK | January 6, 2008 4:48 PM

Rid the world of H Bombs? Please explain how you plan to get either the Russians or the Chinese to play ball on that. Then explain how you plan to get India and pakistan to do so.

After that, you can explain how you plan to get all those countries to agree to reduce stockpiles.

Note that the "successful" Washington Naval talks involved Japan building a new class of ship that was technically outside the regulatory regime. Why would you expect anything differnt in a modern treaty?

The thing that idealists never really understand about this issue is that arms treaties really only work between entities that already trust each other. That level of trust simply does not exist between the various nuclear powers.

Heck, if India and Pakistan did not have nukes, they likely would have fought a few bloody conventional wars over the last 2 decades. Ironically, if we could wave a wand and un-invent nukes, the world would likely be more bloody immediately - because the cost of war would drop.

Posted by James Robertson | January 6, 2008 9:16 PM