Matt Yglesias

23 Responses to “Headline of the Day”

1. Aaron S. Veenstra Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 11:33 am

   To be fair, he’s also not particularly well-informed about the world within our borders either.

2. Jim Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 11:54 am

   I too was taken back by McCain’s claim that Pakistan was a “failed state” in 1999. A narrow definition would be a state unable to exercise sovereignty within its own borders. Somalia would be a classic example. That was not the state of affairs in Pakistan in 1999. Foreign Policy magazine also publishes a broader ‘Failed State Index’ each year since 2005 and it often lists Pakistan (along with over half the world’s countries) in part precisely because the military in Pakistan operates as a ’state within a state,’ which is exactly at issue in Musharraf’s take over in 1999: here’s Mr. Lehrer’s own report from the time –
   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec99/pakistan_10-12.html
   Note that it was the prime minister’s dismissal of the Army chief that was the basis of the military coup.

   The upshot of McCain’s claim (a key miss by Obama for not making a point of it) is the U.S.’s continuing justification for overthrowing elected governments because they are insufficiently subservient to the U.S. Doing so undermines the ability of the U.S. to fight terrorism by creating popular dislike of U.S. policies and seemingly to align the U.S. with tyrants.

3. DJ Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am

   Pakistan wasn’t Somalia or Zimbabwe in 1999. People were glad to see Sharif go because of a mixture of authoritarianism and incompetence (sound familiar?).

   There are discussions about whether Pakistan is a failed state but that question transcends the Sharif and Musharraf administrations.

4. dj moonbat Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm

   Nawaz Sharif’s government was notably corrupt, but the only areas of Pakistan his government didn’t control were the same areas the MUSHARRAF government didn’t control. That’s not a “failed state.”

5. olivia Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

   it is unwise for a potential president is wise to call Pakistan a failed state on national television.

6. stefan Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

   The term ‘failed state’ is probably vague enough to encompass Pakistan in 1999. But the problem is that the term then also encompasses Pakistan in 2008 and, to the extent that the term has meaning, much more so in 2008 than in 1999, something McCain implied was not the case.

   The legitimacy and ability to function of the Pakistan state has been a serious concern since 1948, with the military often the center of state power. That military is now less legitimate and more fractured and corrupt than in 1999.

7. cgaros Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

   Yeah, I’m not sure anyone’s going to get a lot of traction out of the “Pakistan wasn’t a failed state” argument. I’d wager a majority of Americans don’t know one fact about Pakistan: where it is on the map, what religion(s) most of the population follows, what language(s) most of the population speaks, how the state originated, the name of any national leader of the last 60 years, how Musharraf came to power, how the U.S. has handled foreign relations with Pakistan, etc. Asking them to understand and care about the limits of governmental sovereignty in this country 10 years ago is unlikely to yield a tangible result.

   Then if you consider what a minimally informed person knows about Pakistan in the last 10 years, the “failed state” definition is going to sound pretty good regardless of particular facts about 1999: military coup d’etat that held power for years in spite of regular promises of elections, assassination of a former PM, failure to track down OBL 8 years after 9/11 in spite of massive U.S. assistance/bribery, regular border clashes with India, and nuclear proliferation. If this wasn’t precisely a failed state in 1999, it’s been close enough in the meantime that no one is going to care about the difference.

8. Adam Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

   Odd too that McCain proposed a “League of Democracies” only minutes before endorsing a military coup against a government which, however badly flawed, was democratically elected.

9. Anthony Damiani Says:
   September 27th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

   It’s a pretty big issue because it underscores McCain’s Manichean world-view:

   Musharraf was with us, he was our guy. He couldn’t possibly have overthrown an elected government in a military coup. The cognitive dissonance would be too great!

   No, no, surely he did what needed to be done. He *rescued* Pakistan, yes, rescued a failed state– boldly taking charge in the face of total structural collapse, only to humbly hand power back to the people.

   Yeah, that’s it.

10. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    September 27th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    Once again, nit-picking McCain or Palin’s ridiculously flawed statements isn’t going to get the Dems anywhere, because most people don’t know, don’t care and won’t even read that stuff in the first place.

    The problem is that Obama has no foreign policy that sounds significantly different from McCain’s, except in tone. McCain is excessively aggressive because he likes war. Obama may not like war, but he has to sound “alpha male” – complicated by the fact that Obama really doesn’t know shit about the military, counterinsurgency, Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran, and is relying on advisers hand-picked by AIPAC.

    The net result is the same problem Kerry faced against Bush – there’s nothing to distinguish Obama from McCain on foreign policy, at least not to the ignorant electorate.

    And that’s bad for Obama.

    Obama can probably gin up a clear distinction on domestic policies – and that’s good for Obama.

    But if McCain – or Bush and Cheney – can keep the focus on foreign policy “crises” rather than the economy, McCain can win.

11. rufustfyrfly Says:
    September 27th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

    I wasn’t sure why he was sticking up for Musharraf to begin with, let alone mangling Pakistan’s history in order to do so. Is there some block of Pervez fans in Ohio or something? Musharraf isn’t even what you would call very popular in Pakistan.

    Anthony Damiani’s explanation above makes some sense, but it’s still weird.

12. J Thomas Says:
    September 28th, 2008 at 8:38 am

    I too was taken back by McCain’s claim that Pakistan was a “failed state” in 1999. A narrow definition would be a state unable to exercise sovereignty within its own borders.

    By that definition pakistan is a failed state now.

    They can’t keep a foreign power from sending flying killer robots over their citizens that bomb whoever the whims of the foreign power choose to.

13. Luke Says:
    September 28th, 2008 at 10:12 am

    Richard, I think McCain wound up (inadvertently) underlining the difference between the two: their strategic approaches to foreign policy.

    While Obama kept agreeing with the ENDS of American foreign policy, the MEANS to get there were pretty clearly diplomatic for Obama; McCain not only rattled sabers throughout the debate, but also made it quite clear that (like Bush) he believes that diplomacy is never more than filibustering.

    The Republicans pose an existential threat to the phrase “failed state”. The Palestinian Authority is a failed state. The Taliban government was a failed state (and now Karzai’s seems to be). The Confederacy was a failed state; the Union government was not.

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