Victor Davis Hanson // National Review
The problem with conventional wisdom is not that it is always wrong. The rub is that the majority of “experts” unthinkingly and habitually mouth its validity until they ensure that it becomes static, unchanging, and immune from reexamination and dissent — an intolerant religious orthodoxy that finally become dangerous.
The recent Middle East breakthroughs are a perfect example. Both the Obama and Trump administrations sought quite different ways of navigating through the nearly 75-year-old “Middle East problem,” usually framed as the Israeli–“Palestinian” question.
Obama, in radical fashion, sought to empower and elevate Iran. The so-called Iran deal, the dropping of sanctions, the nocturnal infusions of cash, the exemptions for clear violations of the deal’s protocols, the nefarious work of Hezbollah — all that and more was excused on the theory that a growing Persian Shiite Iranian nexus from Tehran to the Mediterranean was inevitable and would “balance” both Israel and the so-called moderate Sunni Arab states. That realignment might prevent a Middle East war and end the leverage of America’s former Arab allies and Israel over us.