Hannity isn’t going to like this one. He’s been running back to daddy, aka Ronald Reagan, ever since the Republican collapse became evident. That the message is being sent by Jeb Bush, someone conservatives love, will make it even more difficult to take. Shorter Jeb: Time to leave Reagan behind.
“So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause,” Mr. Bush said.
“From the conservative side, it’s time for us to listen first, to learn a little bit, to upgrade our message a little bit, to not be nostalgic about the past because, you know, things do ebb and flow.”
As for the beast that Reagan built, you could look at it from several angles, including that he was the guy who let the religious right in, who helped win some elections for him, his party, including George W. Bush, but they also have led the Republicans to where they are today.
However, that’s not the beast to which I refer. The real beast is the Pakistani Taliban and our situation in that country, which has been getting even more attention as things unwind, including yesterday when SecDef Gates talked to Fareed Zakaria. Gates hinted at something that needs to get a lot of attention, because if you think putting more military in Afghanistan is a bad idea, you’ve not seen anything until we escalate in Pakistan:
Security proposals up for discussion with Zardari and other members of his high-level delegation include counterinsurgency training for Pakistani army troops at U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, the United States or elsewhere. The administration wants to expand a small, in-country training force — now limited to about 70 Americans — that is working with the Frontier Corps, the local, poorly armed force in the border regions.
…In deference to Pakistani objections, the administration has not initiated covert ground attacks, approved by the Bush administration last year, in mountain villages farther to the north, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where it believes high-value al-Qaeda figures are located. But Obama authorized stepped-up attacks on the area by missiles launched from unmanned drone aircraft.
While Democrats would be wise to drill the point home that much of what we’re facing in Central Asia is a beast Ronnie created, not unlike George W. Bush’s mess, because Republicans just don’t do foreign policy very well.
Pakistan all started after Carter approved aid, though he likely had no idea what Reagan would approve for William Casey, CIA director during the big escalation years in Pakistan, as we used Zia to help us wage a covert war against the Soviets through the Afghans, via Pakistan. It was Reagan, through Casey, that led to the creation of what has finally metastasized into the Talibani Pakistan today.
To be fair, we were at war with the Soviets back in the 80′s, not understanding that they were imploding as we armed. So it’s quite possible, especially since Carter did the initial funding, that a Democrat would have kept going. However, it’s doubtful anyone would have let William Casey and the CIA wage their own war. That’s on Reagan.
Through it all, Robert Gates was by Casey’s side. He saw it unfold. Casey’s private war could not have happened without the aid Reagan gave Zia, which ended up creating a monster over 25 years later.
Gates knows all this, so he knows what we face. He was there at the beginning. Now he’s hinting that if Pakistan wants advisers we’ll provide them. That we’ll do anything in Pakistan we’re asked to do. That’s a chilling scenario.
SEC. GATES: Well, of the kinds of things that you’ve described, I think that we have been willing to provide all the training and that kind of equipment that we possibly can, as much as they would take. There has been a reluctance on their part up to now. They don’t like the idea of a significant American military footprint inside Pakistan. I understand that. But we are willing to do pretty much whatever we can to help the Pakistanis in this situation. I think that we have been willing to do that for quite some time.
Zakaria: Will there be American military advisers in Pakistan now training the Pakistani military in counterinsurgency?
SEC. GATES: Well, I think that remains to be seen. There are some very small number now. But I think it will depend on how the situation develops and the views of the Pakistani government. I would just say we are prepared to provide whatever help in developing this counterinsurgency capability to the Pakistanis that we possibly can. But it’s their country, and they’re sovereign, and we’ll let them dictate the rules.
Pakistan’s also just waking up to the reality that their real enemy isn’t India, which has been their focus for decades, but that it resides inside.
I’m not sure what the U.S. is waking up to at this point. But hearing Gates talk about building up advisers, but also a possible expanded position in Pakistan, even as he says he won’t approve more troops for Afghanistan, to which I fully agree, I just hope Pres. Obama is a student of history. As bad as people think Afghanistan can get, using the Soviets as a model. It doesn’t compare to escalating in Pakistan.
The other reality is that the beast that Reagan built may give us little choice. No one thinks it’s a good idea to let Pakistan fall, which the Pakistani army can control, but only if it takes more power for themselves, which they seem to be doing now.
A military regime in Pakistan is looking more likely every day. And as unpalatable as that sounds to us, it’s more digestible than escalating U.S. military assets inside Pakistan, fighting Reagan’s beast.
