Obama kills some pirates [which the press for their own dubious reasons trumpet as a foreign policy success] and a military analyst wonders why Navy broke SOP by getting in so deep in the first place, to which I respond:
You seem to discount political calculation: Obama, in danger of looking weak given his agenda, must take advantage of opportunities to look strong especially if those opportunities comport with his agenda - likewise, given his agenda, he cannot afford to look weak should events conspire to force such a scenario upon him. To not do anything would have risked making him look weak - once they decided to escalate, the use of force given the intransigence of the pirates was virtually guaranteed because the only thing worse than the hostage being killed by pirates while stalked by a multi million dollar destroyer is having the pirates escape to shore with hostage while being stalked by multi million dollar destroyer - Obama is being lauded for showing resolve etc etc but fact is once escalated the choice is already made. The question is did Obama, possibly deluded by his own agenda, fully understand that? - because the big risk here of course is if the Somalis decide to call his bluff with a 'political' statement of their own and the situation starts to spin out of control - I have trouble seeing how it's to the brigands' advantage to pump up the volume, but then I'm not a Somali pirate.
update: appears that Somalis intend to call bluff seeing as how they've already assaulted four more ships, including an American flagged one - again, the important question here, if it was really against Navy SOP, and I have it from a good source that it was, the important question is why did the Navy decide to interdict? Did they force this decision upon Obama? did he force it upon them? or was it mutually agreed upon?
