Obamalot

Haroon the Magnificent of the Toronto Star swoons--and then takes Mr Obama's Afghan policy to pieces. So what's to swoon about?

Unless he blows it today in Berlin, Barack Obama has made a successful debut on the world stage. Rarely has an American presidential candidate walked taller abroad than he.

Poised, polished and well-informed, he has marched through the political minefields of Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel. He looked and sounded presidential ("as president, I would ..."; "as commander-in-chief, it'd be my job to ...")...

Almost overnight, his agenda – pull out of Iraq, concentrate on Afghanistan – is accepted wisdom...

His call for an additional 10,000 American troops for Afghanistan, welcomed by Canada and other NATO allies, is not a long-term solution. A military surge is less likely to work there than in Iraq. Just as he is advocating a political solution for Iraq, he needs one for Afghanistan – in fact, more so.

To the West, more troops mean more resources to beat back the Taliban. To many Afghans, however, more Western troops mean more of a foreign military stranglehold on their country and, more immediately, more civilian deaths.

NATO troops, especially Americans, have lately been involved in a steady stream of incidents in which civilians have been killed.

Some of these incidents don't even make it to our media and, when they do, dutifully echo NATO claims that so many "militants" or "Taliban" were killed. Within hours comes word that either all or many of the victims had been civilians. This is fuelling widespread anger and eroding NATO's legitimacy [but see this post; Mr Siddiqui seems not quite up to speed - MC].

Similarly, Obama's position, repeated on this trip, that he'd bomb Pakistani hideouts of the Taliban is a recipe for igniting more anti-Americanism in Pakistan, which, in turn, will make it nearly impossible for the newly elected, still teetering, government to do much...

Bit of a disconnect, eh?

Update: Chris Selley at Macleans' Megapundit blog can spot a swoon too! Take a look also at his dissection of Jim Travesty's paean to Mr Obama and slash at prime minister Harper.