LETTER TO EDITOR: Policy reorientation

Sen. John Kerry’s keen analysis on Pakistan that “a military strategy alone cannot prevail” makes sense (“Pakistan needs our support,” Op-Ed, Friday). For years, it hasn’t worked. So why now? It even could be said that Osama Bin Laden needs American bombs to help generate funding and recruits. So why not instead cut off that particular oxygen supply?

Rather, we could try to grab him through aid to the local people, their greater good will, consequent better local intelligence-gathering and unobtrusive Special Forces work. All the bombing does - including the inevitable accidental strikes on civilians - is squander President Obama’s opportunity to “re-brand” America as a peaceful and world-friendly nation that will create an invigorating break with the past and make the most fundamental possible change on the planet’s - and especially Muslim world’s - perceptions.

We have a unique opportunity to transform general Western-Islamic relations. The most effective thing Mr. Obama could do, now that everyone is all eyes and ears, would be to carry out a policy reorientation that would justify and augment the world’s “audacity of hope” in the new America of this presidency.

That could render al Qaeda increasingly irrelevant. This is what terrorists fear most about the new president. Maybe this way in the bargain we could even quietly nab bin Laden.

JAMES ADLER

Cambridge, Mass.