In a startling development, Barack Obama is flung a rather ill-prepared noodle at the wall of international opinion to see where (and if) it might stick. Nedra Pickler of The Associated Press is reporting today that Senator Obama’s speech before the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (a thoroughly appropriate forum for nonsensical international policy) will include the following words:

"Let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Also in the speech, Obama attacks President Bush’s leadership of the Iraqi War, specifically, and the "War on Terror," generally. According to the AP article, Obama says:

"He confuses our mission...By refusing to end the war in Iraq, President Bush is giving the terrorists what they really want, and what the Congress voted to give them in 2002: a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."

In the article, the freshman Illinois Senator also calls for withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and restaging of troops "on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Well.

While I applaud the young Senator’s timing in unfurling of his nascent war hawk wings (particularly, before an institute named for a former president whose very name is synonymous with an American "war-state"), I believe he has had some rather poor guidance in preparing for this speech and its contents. With his strident rhetoric, he is endangering ongoing intelligence operations and diplomacy by attacking the one Islamic government that has shown the least bit of support for America’s efforts to thwart terrorism in the Middle East.

President Musharraf’s regime in Pakistan, while not necessarily a Churchillian ally, has given American forces about as much assistance and leeway as he can without risking a complete rebellion of his countrymen. He has heard, loudly and clearly, the growing chorus of his countrymen calling for his resignation and there have been at least a half-dozen assassination attempts, one by members of his own Air Force. The recent government intervention and July 10-12, 2007 siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad was a bold and dangerous initiative on the part of his military. This president of a thoroughly fundamental Islamic nation is walking a very fine tightrope with U.S. assistance in the midst of a constituency that is almost totally anti-democracy and anti-American. Of course, the financial incentives have been levied for his compliance but he is constantly risking death and/or violent rebellion in his high-wire act.

In international diplomacy, one can never hope for full and complete cooperation, even from countries that mirror our own national interests. Anyone who still believes that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill were in complete agreement in all aspects of World War II and that there was a free and unfettered flow of intelligence between the two countries need only read Geoffrey Best’s "Churchill: A Study in Greatness" to be reappraised of the facts. Perfect cooperation is a chimera sought only by the naive and the ill-informed. In affairs of nations, one can only hope for an acceptable level of trust and cooperation. President Bush has achieved this with President Musharraf.

I generally like - and truly admire - Senator Obama. As I have written on this site before, I honestly believe that, with adequate "seasoning" - be it another term or two in the Senate or a high position in the next administration - he will be a powerful uniting force and able Chief Executive someday. However, that day, in my opinion, has not arrived. I now am convinced that his inexperience in the field of international diplomacy has been reflected with blinding ineptitude twice, now, in less than two weeks. At the "YouTube Debate," he stumbled badly in saying that he would sit down with any leader of any foreign country and discuss U.S. concerns. Senator Clinton, clearly Obama’s major opponent, quickly called him out on this as a major diplomatic faux pas. During the debate, she retorted: "we are not going to have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and the presidents of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be." Her campaign quickly followed up with a blitz of memos and press releases.

Now, there is this obvious threat to a fragile coalition between a predominantly-Christian nation and a fundamentally Islamic nation that has been effectively nursed toward productivity and trust for the past 6 years. To think - much less say in a public forum - that the United States would invade Pakistan to hunt down terrorists is absurd and foolish. Further, such a declaration is not only imprudent, it is foolhardy. Using the same argument, one could logically extend this policy to other Islamic countries who are even safer havens for terrorists. Does Senator Obama feel that "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Saudi Arabia or Jordan or Oman] won't act, we will?"

I, personally, view this as the first major (I did not consider his statement about meeting with leaders of hostile nations as "major;" it was spaghetti politics ©) chink in the House that Obama built. This is a serious error in judgement and, regardless of the Senator’s ultimate election chances, I believe this utterance will have a palpable effect on the leadership of Pakistan and, possibly, other Islamic countries who might be contemplating further cooperation with the U.S. intelligence agencies. It was wrong-minded and inflammatory.

Where this particular noodle sticks will probably not be in the best interest of this country.