Will Obama Sheathe the Sword and Use the Paper Knife of Diplomacy to Deal with Fanatics?

By Con George-Kotzabasis

The attack on Mumbai is the continuation of terror by all means. The question is whether the civilized people of the world in this struggle for existence will be expecting the U.S.A., under the new incoming administration, which is the only nation that can defeat these warriors of ‘God’ decisively, and its allies, to also fight terror by all means and whether President Obama will have the timely mettle, resolution, and sagacity to do so. His Clintonian appointees to chief Cabinet positions and his selection of liberal minded ‘consigliore’, who have all been critical of the ‘pugnacious’ foreign affairs policy of the Bush-Cheney administration, do not bode well, despite the fact that all of them are highly intelligent and replete with experience in world affairs.

However, the crucial test for all these people in the proscenium and the eminence grise that will be in the wings and will be advising President Obama, is whether they will have the moral strength and imagination to break from their experience of the past that can no longer apply to an unprecedented unique enemy in the form of fanatical irrational terror, and forge by the power of imagination a policy not only made of carrots but also of the cold usable blade of the sword against this deadly irreconcilable foe. And ultimately, since it will be Obama’s decision, whether the latter will sheath Bush’s sword and instead use the paper knife of diplomacy as the major instrument to defeat state and ‘stateless’ fanatics.

Don’t postpone your opinion on this critical issue