{"id":10115,"date":"2017-04-24T10:09:14","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T17:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10115"},"modified":"2017-04-24T10:09:14","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T17:09:14","slug":"the-tar-pits-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tar-pits-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tar Pits Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by <\/span>Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Defining Ideas<\/em><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
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As missiles fall on Syria in retaliation for Bashar Assad\u2019s medieval use of chemical weapons\u2014and as voices call for the use of some American ground troops to expedite his removal\u2014we might reflect upon American military interventions in the post-Vietnam era.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s major interventions include Iraq in 1991, the Balkans in 1995 and 1999, Afghanistan in 2002, Iraq from 2003 to 2011, and, Libya in 2011. More minor interventions occurred in places like Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama\u2014and there were occasional bombings in Africa and the Middle East. Although awful dictators were often removed\u2014Maurice Bishop, Manuel Noriega, Slobodan Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi\u2014nothing quite turned out as expected.<\/p>\n

The first Gulf War forced the genocidal Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, but left him in power in Iraq, where he continued to murder thousands. Hussein\u2019s reign prompted 12 years of UN-sanctioned no-fly-zones, \u201coil for food\u201d graft, on-off American bombing against his regime\u2014and, of course, another war. Twelve years later, and after the disaster of 9\/11, George W. Bush finally got rid of Saddam. But the cost was steep. America lost 4,516 soldiers to achieve a peace and consensual government by 2008\u2014only to have Obama effectively relinquish control of the country to Iran and ISIS in 2011.<\/p>\n

To read more: http:\/\/www.hoover.org\/research\/tar-pits-abroad<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ Defining Ideas \u00a0 As missiles fall on Syria in retaliation for Bashar Assad\u2019s medieval use of chemical weapons\u2014and as voices call for the use of some American ground troops to expedite his removal\u2014we might reflect upon American military interventions in the post-Vietnam era. America\u2019s major interventions include Iraq in 1991, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1107,978,28,126,127,846,154,285,1,102,576,524,34],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2D9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6425,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syria-in-historical-context\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":0},"title":"Syria In Historical Context","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"What lessons does the past have for President Obama's policy? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online President Obama\u2019s 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. Even apart from clandestine CIA operations, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Relations"","block_context":{"text":"International Relations","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/international-relations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6442,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syrian-knowns-and-unknowns\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":1},"title":"Syrian Knowns and Unknowns","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media \u00a0 1)\u00a0Red lines:\u00a0Does anyone believe we would be on the eve of a war with Syria had not Barack Obama on two occasions \u2014 echoed on two others by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton \u2014\u00a0warned Bashar Assad of red lines\u00a0surrounding the use of WMD?\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/syria-war_protestor_9-8-13-2-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9096,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-tough-choices-of-overseas-intervention\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":2},"title":"The Tough Choices of Overseas Intervention","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Tribune Media Services The United States has targeted a lot of rogues and their regimes in recent decades: Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Manuel Noriega and the Taliban. As a general rule over the last 100 years, any time the U.S. has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Relations"","block_context":{"text":"International Relations","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/international-relations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6437,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-farce\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Farce","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He sold his plan for bombing Syria on flawed political assumptions. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online \u00a0 To support the president\u2019s 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Syria"","block_context":{"text":"Syria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/syria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/5516984495_a7e9026136-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7627,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-obama-lost-the-middle-east\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":4},"title":"How Obama Lost the Middle East","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The president put politics and ideology ahead of preserving hard-won gains in the region.\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In his first term, Barack Obama all but declared victory in America\u2019s Middle East struggles. As he precipitously pulled out all U.S. peacekeepers from Iraq, the president had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9061,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/speak-loudly-and-carry-a-twig\/","url_meta":{"origin":10115,"position":5},"title":"Speak Loudly And Carry A Twig","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas Nations in the Middle East that once aligned with America are now indifferent. Interests who opposed the United States grow defiant. Fence-sitting countries that calibrated their policies to the perception of U.S. strength are leaning toward our adversaries. Chaos is the result. 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