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February 2, 2008

Barack Obama's plan for fighting terrorism

From Reuters:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama told a French magazine in an interview that if he wins office, he will hold a summit with Muslim countries to better the United States' image in the world.

"Once I'm elected, I want to organize a summit in the Muslim world, with all the heads of state, to have an honest discussion about ways to bridge the gap that grows every day between Muslims and the West," Thursday's edition of Paris Match quoted Obama as saying,

"I want to ask them to join our fight against terrorism. We must also listen to their concerns," Obama said in the French-language transcript.

--Reuters, January 31, 2008

 

A few comments:

This should be an interesting conference, considering that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, and the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan helped create the Taliban. All Muslim countries in the Middle East  have legal systems that are biased against women and non-Muslims.

This does not mean that there is no room for dialog. But Obama, being relatively naive in the arena of foreign policy, vastly underestimates the fundamental differences between the liberal Western democracies and the theocratic nations of the Muslim Middle East.

So far Obama has not been challenged about his plans for fighting terrorism. Yet he has relatively few details about how he would protect America if elected---assuming that the voters ever commit such a colossal folly.