386 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized BiographySenator Clinton had disagreed with this reckless and unilateral approach: ‘“You can think big,
but remember, you shouldn’t always say everything you think if you’re running for president,
because it has consequences around the world,” Senator Clinton had retorted. Dodd had joined
Clinton in criticizing Obama. Dodd said Obama’s stance could undermine Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf, the country’s military ruler, who has been a U.S. ally in the fight against al
Qaeda. “While General Musharraf is no Thomas Jefferson, he may be the only thing that stands
between us and having an Islamic fundamentalist state in that country,” Dodd said. “So while I
would like to see him change, the reality is, if we lose him, then what we face is an alternative that
could be a lot worse for our country.”^204
Dodd added: ‘I think it’s highly responsible — or irresponsible for people who are running for
the presidency and seek that office to suggest we may be willing unilaterally to invade a nation here
who we’re trying to get to be more cooperative with us in Afghanistan and elsewhere. So my views
— and I say this respectfully to my friend from Illinois here — I think it was wrong to say what he
did in that matter. I think it’s important for us to be very careful about the language we use, make it
clear that if this United States is going to build the relationships around the world, we’re going to
have to do so with allies, in some cases allies that we may not particularly like.’^205 Senator McCain
had criticized Obama for making such a reckless and incendiary proposal. President Bush himself
stated that he intended to work closely with President Musharraf in regard to all operations
conducted by the United States on Pakistani territory.
JAKE TAPPER: OBAMA MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN BUSH
Since the tenant of the White House had ruled out the unilateral bombing of Pakistan which
Obama had demanded, the matter appeared to be closed. Jake Tapper of ABC News found it
striking that Obama, who was posing as the peace candidate for Iraq, should be so aggressive in
regard to Pakistan. Tapper showed that Obama was raising the issue on the campaign trail, quoting
him. ‘“I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges,” Obama said, “but 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 Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value
terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” There it was again: unilateral US
bombing of a sovereign state that had nuclear weapons. Tapper commented: ‘In many ways, the
speech is counterintuitive; Obama, one of the more liberal candidates in the race, is proposing a
geopolitical posture that is more aggressive than that of President Bush.’ (Jake Tapper, ‘Presidential
Candidate Pushes Aggressive Stance Toward Pakistan,’ ABC News, August 1, 2007)^206 In other
words, when it came to Pakistan, Obama was a bigger warmonger than any Republican or Democrat
in sight, including Bush and McCain, to say nothing of Clinton.
Astoundingly, the power of Brzezinski in Washington grew so rapidly that Obama was destined
to prevail, imposing his policy instead of the announced intentions of the man who kept calling
himself the president of the United States. Late in March 2008, a press account revealed that the US
had indeed gone over to unilaterally bombing northwest Pakistan: ‘The United States has escalated
its unilateral strikes against al-Qaeda members and fighters operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas,
partly because of anxieties that Pakistan’s new leaders will insist on scaling back military
operations in that country, according to U.S. officials. “We have always said that as for strikes, that
is for Pakistani forces to do and for the Pakistani government to decide.... We do not envision a
situation in which foreigners will enter Pakistan and chase targets,” said Farhatullah Babar, a top
spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party, whose leader, Yousaf Raza Gillani, is the new prime