The Value of Putin

Putin ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

Vladimir Putin has the world’s attention this week. The circumstances will remind everyone that reset with Russia is dead. Its

Copyright by World Economic Forum swiss-image.ch/Photo by Sebastian Derungs
Copyright by World Economic Forum
swiss-image.ch/Photo by Sebastian Derungs

working hypothesis — that it was the George W. Bush administration, not the Putin regime, that had either inadvertently or provocatively offended the other’s sensibilities — was invented before the 2008 election on Obama’s partisan and political considerations, not empirical observation.

Under reset, the incoming Obama administration, more nuanced than the outgoing Bush administration and drawing on more enlightened thinking, would appeal to the better angels of Putin’s Russia. The more complex Obamaites would help enlighten the Putin autocracy to the fact that the U.S. and Russia had common interests in improving free trade. We really both wanted to calm world tensions while discouraging proliferation, combating terrorism, working with the United Nations, quelling international crises, and promoting human rights. Once Russians had been tutored about America’s good intentions, we could undo (“reset”) the damage done by the swaggering braggadocio of the interventionist prior administration. Misunderstanding and ill feelings, not ill intentions and malfeasance, were Russia’s sins.

And what is the result of reset? It is open Russian promotion of the Syria/Hezbollah/Iran axis that was active in Iraq and is now more so in Syria. It is Russian obstruction at the U.N. of most American initiatives. It is another round of strangulation of the former Soviet republics. It is satisfaction that a frustrated United States has been reduced to appeasement instead of taking serious steps to thwart Iranian nuclearization, as Putin eggs Iran on. It is more pressure on Eastern Europeans to look to the East, not to the West. It is humiliation of the European Union over Ukraine. It is more internal oppression of a brutal sort. And it is a gratuitous delight in exposing the Obama administration as sanctimonious and weak, while the U.S. lectures Russia on human rights, as if its tepid moral remonstrations de facto translate into shamed abidance. In sum, what the Obama administration is for, Putin is mostly against. Continue reading “The Value of Putin”

Now What?

by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner

Via FlickrEveryone can agree that Obama’s handling of the crisis has been puerile, and that there now are only the proverbial bad and worse options—the  result being not whether the U.S. loses credibility, but only how much and for how long. So what comes next? Continue reading “Now What?”

Intervention in Syria Is a Very Bad Idea

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Syria is turning out to be a sort of Spanish Civil War of our age, with Hezbollah and Iran playing the role of fascist Italy and Germany, and the Islamic nations and jihadists that of Stalin’s Russia, as the moderates disappear and the messy conflict becomes a proxy war for greater powers, with worse to come. Continue reading “Intervention in Syria Is a Very Bad Idea”

Where’s the Patriotic Wrath Over Benghazi?

by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPageMag.com

Remember Benghazi? Continue reading “Where’s the Patriotic Wrath Over Benghazi?”

Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a “reset” policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration’s inability to finesse “soft power” had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. Continue reading “Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0”

The Bad/Good Idea of Removing Assad

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria?
Continue reading “The Bad/Good Idea of Removing Assad”

Mexican Jihad

by Raymond Ibrahim

Gatestone Institute

As the United States considers the Islamic jihadi threats confronting it from all sides, it would do well to focus on its southern neighbor, Mexico, which has been targeted by Islamists and jihadists, who, through a number of tactics — from engaging in da’wa, converting Mexicans to Islam, to smuggling and the drug cartel, simple extortion, kidnappings and enslavement Continue reading “Mexican Jihad”

The Muslim Brothers Get Paid to Threaten America

by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPage Magazine

Remember last year’s giddy bipartisan enthusiasm over the “Arab Spring”? Continue reading “The Muslim Brothers Get Paid to Threaten America”

Iran on the Brink

by Bruce S. Thornton

Defining Ideas

Just in the last few months, events have hastened to a crisis in Iran’s long confrontation with the West. Continue reading “Iran on the Brink”

The No News Stories of 2011

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

The German Stereotype

There were lots of stories that left a lot unsaid. The Germany/EU debt imbroglio was one of them. Continue reading “The No News Stories of 2011”