Reihan Salam makes a great point about the United States' unconditional support of Pervez Musharraf.
It is no wonder that Pakistan's tenuous alliance with the United States has also been discredited in the eyes of the Pakistani masses. After all, the United States stood by as Musharraf made a mockery of his democratic commitments, and turned a blind eye as he armed Islamist militants with one hand while "fighting" them with the other.
The United States' unconditional support of Musharraf is something Obama has been criticizing for a long time, while John McCain remained a supporter of the Bush Administration's policy. This is the second major area in which Obama has proved to be prescient in foreign policy matters, and John McCain has proven he doesn't know what he's talking about. The first was the issue of withdrawal from Iraq. Yet somehow, despite both of these developments, there is absolutely zero discussion in the media of what this might mean in terms of how each candidate might handle foreign policy.
This is at least partially the Obama campaign's fault, for not pushing the fact that their foreign policy vision is the more comprehensive and realistic, and pointing out that hysterical punditry is a dangerous way to approach foreign affairs.
--A. Serwer
