Friday, October 09, 2009
|
|
"Congatulations Mr. President. Now Please Use The Moment To Save The Afghan People From The Taliban and The World From Iran's Fanatics"
|
|
Posted by:
Hugh Hewitt at
8:57 AM
|
That's the title of the column I just sent off to Townhall which I will link to when it appears.
Before any conservative rushes off to denounce the Committee's decision, pause and consider that this is a salute to the office of the American Presidency and the power and hope it embodies. Of course there is no small amount of dazed admiration for the new president mixed in, but the award underscores that the world looks to him to lead, not retreat, and to make peace, not condemn regions to deep darkness, and that has huge implications for the decisions on his desk in the Oval Office right now.
The deliberations on the award were ongoing when the president's only foreign policy action of consequence was his recommitment to victory in Afghanistan. He campaigned on winning there, and he dispatched thousands of more troops to the region. Now as he nears a critical decision on whether or not to provide the troops his commander in the theater is pressing for even as appeasers in his inner circle council appeasement of the Taliban, he is awarded the world's most prestigious prize.
Hope and pray that the award puts some steel in his spine and impresses on him the prospect of looking at his medal through the years if as a consequence of his decisions in the next few weeks, another many generations of Afghan women are condemned to remain in their burqas without benefit of education or medical care even as their husbands plot unmolested to strike America again. Perhaps the award will encourage him to end the dithering and confirm again America's strong resolve to defeat the Taliban and it s al Qaeda allies.
Hope and pray as well that the award triggers in the president consideration of the awful irony if Iran would go nuclear within a year of his being so honored.
The award is a good thing for President Obama, a great honor and recognition of the role of America, and an opportunity for the president to recommit, against the pressure from his domestic left, to leading the world towards genuine peace and security.
|
|
|