Vote for Me Or Else: Patterns between Egypt and Pakistan
by Raymond Ibrahim // Gatestone Institute In what seems to be a pattern in many Muslim nations of finding new pretexts to justify anti-Christian—and “anti-Other”—behavior, Egypt’s Christians and their churches are under attack, ostensibly because Christians joined the June 30 Revolution, which led to the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood. Lesser known is that, even before […]
Obama’s Box Canyon
Our Hamlet-in-cheif wanted simultaneously to act and not act. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online The Syrian fiasco arose from two mutually contradictory desires. Barack Obama sincerely wanted Bashar Assad to stop killing his own people. Barack Obama also really was not willing to use force to ensure that Assad would stop killing his […]
The Charade Can Go On — and On and On . . .
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner So far in the Syrian charade, Bashar Assad has won de facto permission to be a legitimate ruler negotiating with superpowers, while promising to kill thousands more by blowing them up, shelling them, and shooting them without “obscene” chemical weapons. Vladimir Putin controls the tempo of the crisis. […]
Syria in the Age of Myth
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media Myth I. Conservatives opposed to bombing Syria are isolationists. Hardly. It would be better to call conservative skepticism a new Jacksonianism that is not wedded to any Pavlovian support for intervention or particular political party.
Syria in a Nutshell
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner We are contemplating going to war in Syria to help the opposition a lot and to hurt Assad some, or to help the opposition some and hurt Assad a lot, or to hurt Assad some and help the opposition some, or to force Assad to stop or to […]
Populism Lives at NRO
We depend on thousands of small contributors. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online National Review Online imposes no litmus test on its contributors. The result each day — to take the most recent hot-button issue — is that columnists both support and oppose the proposed Syrian intervention, though usually from a shared conservative perspective. NRO […]
Muslim Persecution of Christians: June, 2013
by Raymond Ibrahim // Gatestone Institute The degradation of Christian women living in the Islamic world continued in the month of June. In Syria, after the al-Qaeda linked rebel group conquered Qusair, a city of the governate of Homs, 15-year-old Mariam was kidnapped, repeatedly gang raped according to a fatwa legitimizing the rape of non-Sunni women by any […]
Watching the Middle East Implode
Only when we recognize the fundamental role Islam plays in the region can we begin to craft sensible policies that put U.S. interests first. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas The revolutions against dictators in the Middle East dubbed the Arab Spring have degenerated into a complex, bloody mélange of coups and counter-coups, as have […]
Fifteen Minutes of Foreign Policy Malfeasance
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine On the eve of the 12thanniversary of the terrorist strikes on 9/11, President Obama last night addressed the nation and reprised every delusional and bankrupt internationalist idea that contributed to that disaster. The current Syrian crisis––merely the latest Middle Eastern example of Obama’s incompetence––exemplifies more thoroughly than the rest […]
Putin — Saruman Come Alive
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner “It was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves.” — J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers. If it were regrettable that Vladimir Putin’s formidable diplomatic skills were wasted […]
The Myth of a California Renaissance
Sacramento’s strategy for recovery is more taxes, more regulation, and more government. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online Are the recent raves about a new California renaissance true? Rolling Stone magazine just gushed that California governor Jerry Brown has brought the state back from the brink of “double-digit unemployment, a $26 billion deficit and an accumulated […]
Victor Davis Hanson on the John Batchelor Show
Wednesday 11 September 2013/ Hour 3, Block A: Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover, in re: Syria. This president is not yet mature enough from experience to handle the complexities surrounding Syria; he’s not up to it. Putin in today’s NYT op-ed as a wise and experienced world leader. Six weeks from now, US Arleigh Burke destroyers still […]
On 9/11 — A Look Back, a Look Forward
The as now, the Arab world’s self-induced pathologies cannot be cured by American self-doubt. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online September 11, 2001, was not just a tragedy, but rather a willful act of war by radical Islamists who hate Western civilization and the American version of it in particular. They achieved, by their […]
Predictably Misleading
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner The one requisite in a presidential speech is honesty. Without it, nothing else matters. The president’s speech last night was incoherent in its call to be ready at some future day to use force that he just recently insisted must be used immediately.
Brotherhood Imposes Jizya Tribute on Egypt’s Christians
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com Now that the attacks on Egypt’s Christian churches have subsided, stage two of the jihad — profiting from the fear and terror caused by stage one — is setting in:reports are arriving that the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters are forcing the roughly 15,000 Christian Copts of Dalga village in south Minya […]
Syrian Knowns and Unknowns
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 1) Red lines: Does anyone believe we would be on the eve of a war with Syria had not Barack Obama on two occasions — echoed on two others by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — warned Bashar Assad of red lines surrounding the use of WMD?
A Bare-Chested Machiavelli
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner It is unfortunate that Vladimir Putin could not use his formidable diplomatic skills at home to address his own near failing state rather than showcasing them abroad at our expense. Oh, well . . .
Obama’s Farce
He sold his plan for bombing Syria on flawed political assumptions. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online To support the president’s enforcement of his red line in Syria requires suspensions of disbelief. Here are several. I wish it were not true, but there is scant evidence that the world, led by the U.S., […]