There might have been a time when global leaders had the audacity to lead their nations from the front, be it at war or any other crises; but with the ascent of the modern day politician that all soon faded away.
Not anymore! Astonishingly after the news of ISIS having killed a Jordanian pilot broke on Tuesday, King Abdullah not only vowed to hit back the ISIS but is also rumored to be personally participating in the bombing. Oh yes, personally bomb the ISIS savages.
The Jordanian King was in Washington when the news of pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh’s demise at the hands of ISIS extremists came out and was reported to have been greatly angered at the news.
Talking to media shortly before leaving for Jordan, he quoted the Clint Eastwood’s film “Unforgiven,” stating that Jordan would pursue the terrorists until it ran “out of fuel and bullets.”
Jordan has been a key American ally in the air war against ISIS and killed a number of ISIS-affiliated prisoners early Wednesday, as it had previously promised should Kasasbeh, the Jordanian pilot in ISIS’s captivity turn out to be dead.
Some have warned that the terrorist group deliberately deployed news of Kasasbeh’s fate in order to provoke a Jordanian overreaction and just as ISIS might have estimated public outcry in Jordan afterwards has pressured the government into a strong response, regardless of its previous strategy.
Leaving politics aside, the King’s rumored personal participation in the bombing and immediate response after the Jordanian pilot’s murder, is to many around the world, the characteristic of a real leader who actually cares for his people; unlike as many in US point out, the lazy Obama or even our own complacent Nawaz Sharif who needed a hundred kids to die before waking up from his slumber.
Shockingly for Pakistanis King Abdullah actually went to war to avenge the death of one man. Whereas we in Pakistan still debate about talking peace with those who’ve murdered over forty thousand of our own, there is undoubtedly a leadership gap in this country.
Maybe King Abdullah personifies what a leader should really be like. One who leads his nation at all fronts regardless of the danger.
