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# Posted 11:22 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

OBAMA VS. GATES VS. MUSHARRAF: After Hillary accused him of being naive about national security, Obama decided to advertise that he would attack Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan even without the permission of Gen. Musharraf. On Sunday morning, Tim Russert decided to ask the Secretary of Defense a very similar question:

MR. RUSSERT: Before you go, if we had actionable intelligence about Osama bin Laden or high level targets in Pakistan, and General Musharraf—President Musharraf did not act, would we act unilaterally?

SEC’Y GATES: Musharraf has been a very strong ally. The fact of the matter is, if we had actionable intelligence that Osama was in Pakistan, I think—my view is that President Musharraf would work with us to make sure that we could go after him.

MR. RUSSERT: But if he didn’t, would we act unilaterally?

SEC’Y GATES: I think we would not act without telling Musharraf what we were planning to do.

A diplomatic answer from the Secretary, although not a very clear one. Thus, it seems Obama has found a way to position himself to the right of the Bush administration on one small aspect of national security.

On the one hand, I'm glad to see that Obama can think of at least one situation in which he would support the use of force unilaterally. But his position strikes me as opportunistic. He can afford to antagonize the Pakistanis precisely because he isn't President. If he were, both the State Department and the Pentagon would be knocking down his door to prevent him from risking the US government's entire relationship with Pakistan. I'm guessing that since Democrats are so big on exhausting all diplomatic options before resorting to the use of force, Obama would listen.

If it hadn't been just a week after Hillary attacked him for being naive, I doubt Obama would've tried to flank both her and Bush from the right.

Labels: Musharraf, Obama, Pakistan, Robert Gates

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