How NOT To Respond To Terror

From Steve Calabresi in the Politico Arena responding to the Mumbai terror attacks:
"We may not know yet who perpetrated the Mumbai terrorist attacks, but we do know that American and British citizens were singled out for slaughter which makes this an attack on us as well as on India. I think President-elect Obama needs to say that and also do more in responding to this than just issuing the statement deploring it that he issued yesterday. This is the first terrorist attack since the election. Al Qaeda will gauge Obama’s response to see whether he is any tougher than Bill Clinton who usually responded to terrorist attacks by fecklessly firing cruise missiles at abandoned targets.

...Our enemies around the world from Al Qaeda to Russia are sizing Obama up right now, and there will be hell to pay if they conclude rightly or wrongly that he is weak. Moreover, just as the markets needed reassuring last week so too do our allies in the war on terror need a reassurance from Obama this about the seriousness of his intentions. Now would be a good time to talk about boosting our troops in Afghanistan and redoubling our efforts to catch Osama Bin Laden. Our response needs to make clear that we will wage a war on terror that we will win but that we sympathize with moderate Muslims who are often the victims of terror. We need to drive a wedge between the terrorists and Islam as we finally did in Iraq."

TW: The above is egregious stupidity and represents why I very much hope Obama will be different than W. Bush and his right-wing acolytes. Lets parse the above:
1) Obama is not the POTUS for Obama to jump directly into detailed policy implementation of this nature seven weeks pre-inauguration is not constructive and potentially destructive. Calabresi is already cynically attempting to drop terrorist acts into Obama's lap with I am sure soon enough the associated blame for any future attacks.
2) Calabresi prefaces his statement by saying no one knows who perpetrated the attacks but then launches into a series of suggestions which assumes Al-Qaeda is the culprit. Any shoot first ask questions later attitude is dangerous and irresponsible. Ultimately the blind belief that Al-Qaeda is behind every terrorist attack is simplistic and leads to poor policy.
3) Most egregiously is Calabresi's effort to have the U.S. jump at any and all provocations and answer with asymmetrically powerful force. All terrorists and in particular Al-Qaeda thrive on pricking larger forces in hope of drawing heavy-handed and disproportionate responses which only feed the cycle of violence. Letting terrorists drive the agenda by reacting with vengeance instead of cold, hard calculation is exactly the wrong prescription.
4) Calabresi claims a whole host of potential challengers to the U.S. are waiting anxiously to see if Obama will react with "force" to this alleged provocation. In doing so he casually lumps Al-Qaeda and Russia into the same sentence. Russia is not a poster child for world governance but they are not Al Qaeda, lumping them together is dangerous simple minded ignorance.
5) Finally he claims a great victory against terror in Iraq. Anyone claiming "victory" of any sort in Iraq is a fool. A stemming of the casualties for now, a reduction in violence- yes for now, but victory no. To claim that Iraq is somehow the model for fighting terror is dubious in the extreme. Al Qaeda after all did not operate there before we invaded, our presence permitted them to flourish. Now that the Iraqis are moving away from them cannot be considered a template for dealing with Al Qaeda unless you ascribe to circular logic.

Calabresi should be considered a quack instead he is a respected voice of the right-wing.