Monday, December 15, 2008

Effects of Mumbai attacks

Here's the column I did for this Sunday's Register Commentary section on (some of) the impacts of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai Nov. 26. The upshot? Barack Obama, who a few weeks ago looked to becoming into office with foreign crises relatively quiescent, or at least capable of holding for a bit while he and his people figured out what to do about them, could facde a full-blown foreign crisis on his first day or two in office. It's certainly not what he had in mind. Krauthammer thinks he picked the foreign policy team he did to handle things in ways that didn't require his full-time attention, as his main ambition is to be a transoformative figure in domestic policy. Since I disagree with most of his domestic agenda, I would hardly welcome this, though it would certainly give me a target-rich environment for editorials and articles. Whatever, it looks as if he'll have foreign-policy problems that will demand something close to immediate attention.

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