John McCain: The Security Choice

Note: The version below corrects the two errors made by the printing paper (Student Life), which were the size of the radical Muslim population and the missing comma. 

As is so often the case, the American people are being forced to choose between two poor presidential candidates, neither of whom is truly fit to hold the highest office in our nation. On the one hand, we have a senator with the most liberal voting record this session and no substantive experience to report. On the other is a man who typically holds the Republican line, which might be fine, if it were still the party of small government and personal liberty. But, when it instead morphs into the party of warrantless wiretapping and the denial of evolution, that is hardly something we ought to get excited about. More alarming, when he does break with the party, it is usually to back populist positions that play well in the polls but hurt us, like “taking on big oil” as though it were some monolithic force of evil, rather than the engine of modern civilization.

So, with neither candidate deserving of the office for which he is running, how is the average voter to decide? In my mind, it ought to be based on the one area of great importance where there is a real difference, which is national security. And no, I don’t mean the alarmist “no liquids or gels in excess of three ounces” variety. Rather, now that the era of unipolarity is all but over, we very seriously need to consider which candidate has a more rational foreign policy, one that will ensure the safety of the American people. In that regard, it seems quite clear to me that the better man is Sen. John McCain.

While the War on Terror might be misnamed, as terrorism is a tactic and not an entity, the underlying idea is important. The greatest threat of the 21st century thus far appears to be Islamism. Now, to be clear, Islamism is distinct from the brand of Islam practiced by the majority of Muslims in that it has specific political ambitions, including the recreation of a caliphate governed by Sharia law. Whatever textual support exists for their beliefs, they make up a minority among a largely peaceful bunch. But with between 10 and 15 percent of the Muslim world being radical, as Dr. Daniel Pipes estimates, that translates to more than 130 million such individuals. Even if just one percent of that group takes up arms, they pose an exceptional threat. And which candidate is more aware of this threat? If the reaction by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which Sen. Charles Schumer said “has ties to terrorism” (Sept. 2003 Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism), to the GOP convention is any indication, then clearly it is John McCain. If not, we could simply ask which candidate was endorsed by the leadership of the infamous terrorist organization Hamas. Unsurprisingly, it is the dangerously naïve Barack Obama they picked as the preferable candidate.

But, though the threat posed by global jihadists is great, it is not the only national security issue that must be considered. Rather, we must also look to the recent Russian action in Georgia. It ought to have served as a wake-up call that Russia would no longer be relegated to the sidelines but would instead re-assert itself as a world power. In the hours after the unlawful incursion into sovereign Georgia, the two candidates had very different, and very telling, reactions. McCain was quick to realize that Russia was the aggressive power and demanded an immediate and complete withdrawal from Georgian land. Obama on the other hand, until he’d had enough time to rephrase what McCain uttered, was essentially too flustered to handle it, and suggested turning the situation over to the United Nations. He of course failed to realize that the only U.N. body of any power, the Security Council, contains a veto-wielding Russia to block any action that would undermine their attempt to create instability in the former Soviet republics that were starting to look westward. This was the sort of 3 a.m. scenario that Hillary Clinton alluded to in her well-known campaign ad. And guess who failed the test?

What we must realize is that, more than ever, power over security issues is concentrated in the hands of the executive branch, with the president having ultimate say. Biden’s long record of making the wrong decisions and capitulating to Iran doesn’t help excuse Obama’s foreign policy ineptitude. Nor does Palin’s relative inexperience on matters of defense count for much. This is because, at the end of the day, we are voting for a president. In either administration, he will be the one making the decisions, with minimal regard for what the bottom half of their ticket has to say. We therefore must back the candidate who can, on his own, handle these consequential security threats from day one. And in this case, the only candidate capable of doing so is John McCain.

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