Obama vows to fight piracy after captain's rescue reports that President Obama, with an early success, thanks to the Navy SEALS snipers in taking out three Somali pirates so that Captain Richard Phillips could be rescued, will face bigger issues if he aggressively pursues fighting piracy in a more major fashion as he vows he will.
First, he will face potential opprobrium from the various shipping enterprises who have dealt with the situation by paying off the pirates - will they be willing to subject themselves to potential liabilities if mistakes get made if things go wrong and innocent citizens get killed or injured?
Second, will Obama be able to get allies to help out with this fight? It seems the French may be interested, but many will prefer not to stand up to these thugs.
Third, Obama will be wading into the continent of Africa where he is revered as the first African-American to be president of a national superpower. If the US gets bogged down there, causes misery for its populations - Obama may not only get blowback from the international community, but from the left base in his own country.
His rewards could be considerable - taking a tough stand on this growing scourge precisely because he would risk offending or injuring major constituencies and if he fails, could get the LBJ rather than the JFK label assigned to him. However, if he succeeds, he would be able to finally wrest the national security mantle from the GOP who has a lot of bromide shoutes, but patheticlaly few who have seen military service themselves. This would further erode the GOP as the party of national security and just reinforce the image of cut and running phonies who can take a stand in the Congress or on cable news shows, but would never consider putting themselves in harm's way - essentially making them no different from President Obama.
UPDATE: Somali Pirates Hijack Four More Ships
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