Probably the singular strategic step of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan war policy review has been a redefinition of the war away from a “war in Afghanistan” to a war in a place known as “Af-Pak.” And as Noah Schachtman observes here and here part of what that’s meant is an expansion of the target set inside Pakistan away from a narrow focus on al-Qaeda to a broader focus on insurgents aiming at toppling the Pakistani government:
Obama also made it clear that the military won’t just go after the militants sowing mayhem in Afghanistan, but the ones undermining Pakistan’s government, too. Specifically, Obama all-but-called-out Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud, the leading suspect in the assassination of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the September 2007 bombings in Rawalpindi, which killed 25. In recent weeks, American drones have hit his network, over and over again.
This leads Judah Grunsetin to wonder who authorized this? He observes that the Afghanistan AUMF is broadly worded to target al-Qaeda wherever they may be, but this seems to be a larger shift in targets:
Question: Is anyone going to call President Barack Obama on this?
Given the broad expansion of presidential war powers over the decades, I think we can safely say that the answer is “no.” After all, Obama’s strategy seems to be broadly supported by congress. If there were large levels of congressional opposition to his approach you might see efforts to limit the scope of his authority, but there is no such opposition at the moment so he’ll be able to do as he sees fit.
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