Foreign Policy

Obama’s Munich

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine  The interim agreement negotiated by the Security Council and Germany with Iran is a serious advance toward what Winston Churchill called the Munich agreement: “a total and unmitigated defeat” and a “disaster of the first magnitude.” Nothing in the agreement guarantees that Iran will fulfill its promises, or that inspectors will be allowed …

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The War on Human Nature

For nations as for individuals, pretending self-interest doesn’t exist is perilous. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  At some critical point, everyone makes choices based on incentives and his own perception of self-interest. Somehow the Obama administration has forgotten that natural law. A therapeutic sense of self-sacrifice is fine in the abstract, but in …

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America’s Wilderness Years

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media  Most two-term presidents leave some sort of legacy. Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. George W. Bush prevented another 9/11, and constructed an anti-terrorism protocol that even his critical successor embraced and often expanded. Even our one-term presidents have achieved something. JFK got Soviet missiles out of Cuba. LBJ …

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How Historic Revisionism Justifies Islamic Terrorism

by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com  How important, really, is history to current affairs?  Do events from the 7th century—or, more importantly, how we understand them—have any influence on U.S. foreign policy today? By way of answer, consider some parallels between academia’s portrayal of the historic Islamic jihads and the U.S. government’s and media’s portrayal of contemporary Islamic …

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For Obama, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure

by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine  Rasmussen reported last Friday that 52% of likely voters approve of Obama’s job performance. This number is both astonishing and depressing. The avalanche of Obama’s failures both domestic and foreign should have buried this presidency months ago. Yet despite the slow-motion implosion of Obamacare now catching the attention of …

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The Failure of American Leadership

Obama’s foreign policy of appeasement has created a dangerous void in the international order. by Victor Davis Hanson // Defining Ideas  The standard critique of President Obama’s foreign policy is now generally well-known—mercurial, paradoxical, and passive. “Leading from behind” seems at odds with the traditional American commitment to ensure—preferably with allies or, if need be, alone—the …

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Prestige and Power in Statecraft

History teaches us that nations must always respond vigorously to an enemy’s challenge, a lesson the U.S. should remember in Syria. by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas President Obama, responding to widespread criticisms that his handling of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis was clumsy and ad hoc, said, “I’m less concerned about style points, I’m …

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‘Game Changers’

by Victor Davis Hanson // Tribune Media Services  When — not if — is the only mystery about an Iranian nuclear bomb. All the warning signs are there. ‘Game changers’ In 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama on two occasions went out of his way to warn the Iranians that the development of a nuclear weapon “would be a …

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Obama: Transforming America

From energy to foreign policy to the presidency itself, Obama’s agenda rolls along. by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online  “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” — Barack Obama, October 30, 2008 “We are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our …

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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. Share This

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