PNAC attempts to resurrect themselves?
Neo-Con Ideologues Launch New Foreign Policy Group
By Daniel Luban and Jim Lobe
IPS Inter Press Service, 2009
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (IPS) – A newly-formed and still obscure neo-conservative foreign policy organisation is giving some observers flashbacks to the 1990s, when its predecessor staked out the aggressively unilateralist foreign policy that came to fruition under the George W. Bush administration.
The blandly-named Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) – the brainchild of Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, neo-conservative foreign policy guru Robert Kagan, and former Bush administration official Dan Senor – has thus far kept a low profile; its only activity to this point has been to sponsor a conference pushing for a U.S. “surge” in Afghanistan.
It appears Mr. Obama is happy to accomodate them, with fearmongering rhetoric indistinguishable from Bush’s.
Obama sets Qaeda defeat as top goal in Afghanistan
Reuters, Fri Mar 27, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama unveiled a new war strategy for Afghanistan on Friday with a key goal — to crush al Qaeda militants there and in Pakistan who he said were plotting new attacks on the United States.
“The situation is increasingly perilous,” Obama said in a somber speech in which he sought to explain to Americans why he was boosting U.S. involvement in the seven-year-old war and expanding its focus to include Pakistan.
The new strategy comes with violence in Afghanistan at its highest level since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States. The militia has escalated its attacks, often operating from safe havens in border regions of Pakistan.
“The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked,” Obama said, stressing that stabilizing Afghanistan required an international effort, not just an American one.
The Afghan Plan, “Mr. Obama’s War”
by Kimberly Dozier, CBS News, March 30, 2009
As I write this, it’s been about 72 hours since President Obama official announced his new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.
The only thing everyone seems to agree on is that this is now “Mr. Obama’s war.”
He says it’s “America’s war,” but we in the media have anointed it otherwise. He owns it.