by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner
Everyone 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?”
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner
We are told hypocrisies are Obama’s problem: Republicans who are usually pro-war don’t support this war only because of Obama; Democrats who are usually anti-war can’t support this war for Obama without being shown up as sudden pro-war hypocrites. Continue reading “A Fundamental Absence of Seriousness”
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner
There are lots of reasons why many of us who would like to punish the Assad-family regime for its long history of anti-American and savage and genocidal conduct fear the present course is unwise, not in America’s interest, and dangerous — at least as it has so far been articulated. Continue reading “On Poking Animals and Other Stupid Things”
by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online
President Obama’s on-and-off-again planned American attack on Syria is nothing new. Besides its five declared wars, America has a habit of intervening all over the world. Continue reading “Syria In Historical Context”
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner
Ostensibly, even an intervention of the most restricted sort in Syria, given the loud proclamations of the limited nature of cruise-missile attacks, should not pose geostrategic risks anything like costlier major ground operations of the sort we conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq. Continue reading “Counterintuitively Risky”
by Raymond Ibrahim // RaymondIbrahim.com
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a strange way of speaking 
straightforwardly, without all the artificial and “morally superior” airs one expects from Western politicians.
Earlier, for example, he wondered why Western leaders were supporting cannibals in Syria:
You will not deny that one does not really need to support the people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras. Continue reading “Putin Puts Obama in Hot Seat: ‘What Will You Do If Rebels Are Ones Using Chemical Weapons?’”
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine
President Obama Saturday laid out the case for a military strike on Syria. He evoked the same rationales Secretary of State Kerry and others, including some conservatives, have been articulating for the last week. We’ve heard of “international norms,” “common understandings of decency,” the “international community” that codified a “normal prohibition against chemical weapons” in the Chemical Weapons Convention, the need to act to deter other rogue states like Iran, and the imperative to punish “crimes against humanity.” Continue reading “Bad Reasons for Bombing Syria”
by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media
Most of the arguments pro and con for an intervention in Syria have already been made. Continue reading “Is The War to Save Face or Save Lives?”
by Victor Davis Hanson // NRO’s The Corner
We are on the verge of a war with Syria. Yet I don’t think the administration has as of yet articulated what its aims are and thus is confused about the means of obtaining them. Is the point of the impending military action to remove Assad, engage his opposition, and foster a consensual society in his place, as if the U.S. can at last do
what so far the Arab Spring has not? To destroy enough of his assets to allow the insurgents (but who exactly are they?) to rebound somewhat? To establish a new American-enforced global statute that WMD use is not permissible in a way that a Rwanda, Grozny, or the Sudan apparently was? To Continue reading “What Is the Syria Plan?”
by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine
Remember the “contrary” Sioux warrior from Little Big Man? He did everything backwards––said “hello” for “goodbye,” washed in sand instead of water. Our president is the foreign policy contrary. He has gotten backwards every maxim of proven wisdom for dealing with the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt counseled, “Speak softly and carry 
a big stick,” but Obama has spoken loudly and carried a little stick. Churchill said, “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” Obama can be always counted on to do the wrong thing––before he’s tried anything else. The Roman general Sulla was “no better friend, and no worse enemy.” Continue reading “Our Contrary President”
