{"id":10151,"date":"2017-05-05T13:52:13","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T20:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10151"},"modified":"2017-05-07T10:32:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-07T17:32:32","slug":"angry-reader-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Angry Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader:<\/h3>\n

Mr. Hanson,<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know anything about Stanley Baldwin, but I\u2019ll assume your description of him is accurate. In that case, you have to stretch quite a bit to make Obama into Baldwin. For instance:<\/em><\/p>\n

You call Baldwin a pacifist. Obama is decidedly not a pacifist. He is a Niebuhrian realist who was willing to bomb and assassinate. Just because he was given the Nobel Peace Prize and preferred diplomacy over the use of violence does not make him a pacifist or appeaser.<\/em><\/p>\n

You claim that Obama, like Baldwin, seems \u201cto believe that war breaks out only because of misunderstandings\u201d that \u201ccan be remedied through more talk and concessions,\u201d and that Obama was opposed to strategic deterrence. Is this not a simplistic and one-sided view of Obama\u2019s actions? He readily acknowledged the evil of organizations such as ISIS and sought the most effective ways to neutralize them\u2014not only through \u201csoft power\u201d that appeals to hearts and minds, but also through military alliances, training local fighters, and through a much stepped-up program of drone warfare.<\/em><\/p>\n

You fault Obama for Iran taking 10 US sailors into custody, but you fail to mention that the sailors were in Iranian territorial waters, were therefore legally apprehended by Iran, and that Obama\u2019s calm approach got them released quickly.<\/em><\/p>\n

You fault Obama for the uranium enrichment agreement with Iran despite the fact that the majority of strategists have hailed this as a great success; that most analysts believe that trying to bomb Iran out of a nuclear program would not have worked and would have led to far more dangerous problems.<\/em><\/p>\n

You claim that when Assad \u201ccalled Obama\u2019s bluff\u201d about the red line of using chemical weapons, that Obama \u201cdid nothing other than call \u2026 Putin to beg Assad to stop killing civilians with chemical weapons.\u201d That\u2019s not my memory of events. My memory is that the US was on the very brink of war with Assad when, during a news conference, Secretary of State Kerry was asked if there was anything that could prevent the beginning of US bombing. Kerry replied that Syria would have to immediately destroy all of its chemical weapons\u2014something Kerry didn\u2019t believe Syria would do. It was at that moment that Russia offered to destroy all of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons. Obama, on balance, decided that was a better option than widening a destabilizing war with an uncertain outcome. Trump\u2019s recent correct decision to bomb a Syrian airfield because of Syria\u2019s recent use of chemical weapons was made possible by Obama\u2019s red-line stance. Syria clearly violated the agreement, and Russia was exposed as a fraudulent actor.<\/em><\/p>\n

North Korea building more and better missiles (and nuclear bombs) was not due to Obama\u2019s policies. On the contrary, that was due to the blundering of Bush. Bill Clinton was in the process of a negotiated settlement with North Korea to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but the Bush administration then torpedoed those efforts and instead threatened North Korea. There is no military solution to North Korea arming itself with nuclear weapons short of exposing South Korea and the North Korean population to mass nuclear carnage. North Korea will continue to pursue nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles as long as it feels threatened. If you have found some other magical solution, I\u2019d like to hear it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying Obama made every right decision in Syria or elsewhere. He almost certainly did not. It may be he was too hesitant to use force in some situations. But that is a far cry from the blanket assertions you make in your column. And time may vindicate him rather than fault him. It may be that his complex strategy of diplomacy and military action was about as good as we could have done under the circumstances. In any case, I urge you to be more accurate, knowledgeable, and nuanced about the uses of diplomacy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Ryan Ahlgrim<\/em><\/p>\n

Richmond, VA<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:<\/h3>\n

Dear Angry Reader Ryan Ahlgrim,<\/p>\n

When I listed various attributes of Stanley Baldwin\u2019s agenda, I ended with \u201cObama, the Nobel peace laureate and former president, resembles Baldwin.\u201d <\/em>And then I listed the areas of commonality, and most certainly did not include Baldwin\u2019s pacifism as an Obama trait. Did you really read the column?<\/p>\n

But that said, Obama\u2019s targeted assassinations via drones and bombing of Libya had nothing to do with maintaining deterrence, which was largely lost after slashing the defense budget, appeasing Iran, letting ISIS, Syria, and North Korea fester, and offering various apologies and morally equivalent rationalizations to our increasingly\u00a0bellicose enemies.<\/p>\n

I suggest, Ryan, that it is not in your argument\u2019s interest to invoke \u201cISIS\u201d\u2014given that Obama wrote the growing terrorist cabal off as a \u201cjayvee\u201d organization, and allowed it to sprout in Iraq and thrive in Syria, by foolishly pulling all U.S. peacekeepers out of a largely quiet Iraq in December 2011. No need to elaborate on Obama\u2019s Syria policies or his \u201credline\u201d; the genocide speaks for itself. One can read Ben Rhodes\u2019s interview about an \u201cecho chamber\u201d and a \u201cknow nothing\u201d media that was easily manipulated for a taste of how foreign policy was conducted. I don\u2019t think the foreign policy of Ben Rhodes, John Kerry, and Susan Rice (as opposed to that of Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster) was anything but extremely dangerous.<\/p>\n

With all due respect, your assertion that Obama\u2019s false redline empowered Trump\u2019s bombing of a Syrian airfield is unhinged. Obama, John Kerry, and Susan Rice bragged that all chemical weapons were destroyed and that there were none left in Syria\u2014as if they had any way of knowing, at best, and, at worse, must have known that assertion was untrue. Such statements were no more accurate than were Benghazi\u2019s being caused by a video-maker, or Bowe Bergdahl being a POW who\u00a0served with honor and distinction as alleged by Susan Rice.<\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s redline not only eroded U.S. deterrence (giving confidence to rogue states like North Korea and Iran to call our bluff), and led to hundreds of thousands of civilian dead in Syria, but also ushered in Russia\u2019s return to the Middle East after a near half-century hiatus.<\/p>\n

Ditto North Korea where you display the same historical ignorance. Bill Clinton bragged that his \u201csettlement\u201d would shortly lead to the dismantling of all <\/em>North Korea\u2019s nuclear weapons. Nothing of the sort happened.<\/p>\n

During the Bush term, it became clear that North Korea had stealthily used Clinton\u2019s naivet\u00e9 to rush toward nuclearization; Bush did not threaten North Korea with force, but rather suggested that if it were to continue its trajectory, its behavior might lead to the nuclearization of Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.<\/p>\n

North Korea does not starve its own people and build nukes because it feels \u201cthreatened\u201d but because it has hit on a two-decade long winning strategy of getting a few nuclear weapons, acting deranged, and demanding bribe money\u2014and it has worked brilliantly in winning attention, cash, and influence for an otherwise failed and genocidal state.<\/p>\n

The 10 sailors, incompetently led, amateurish, and poorly trained, were experiencing mechanical problems in their tiny flotilla, were unfamiliar with the environs of Farsi Island, and wandered into the waters off an Iranian island in the middle of the Persian Gulf. What followed was a propaganda coup, as they were blindfolded, told to put their hands up, humiliated, video-taped and interviewed. The incident was emblematic that the Obama Defense Department was not on full alert in the Persian Gulf, that the Iranians assumed that the U.S. would not demand that the sailors be immediately released, and that Iran saw no downside to an iconic act of humiliation\u2014part of their larger publicity offensive during the tragic Iranian negotiations, whose full details were hidden by the Obama administration and are only now leaking out.<\/p>\n

Given recently released information about secret side-agreements and concessions in the Iran Deal, the 2016-2017 aggressiveness of North Korea, the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and Putin\u2019s post-reset assertiveness, I don\u2019t think it is wise to praise Obama\u2019s foreign policy. And I stand by my obvious\u00a0and unoriginal statement that Obama appeased enemies, and made the world a less safe place, especially for his own country.<\/p>\n

Lead from behind foreign policy was, in fact, like Stanley Baldwin\u2019s (read up on the well-meaning na\u00eff), who left office self-satisfied after ensuring the world would blow up under the watch of his successor Neville Chamberlain.<\/p>\n

In any case, I urge you to be more accurate, knowledgeable, and nuanced about the nature of deterrence and European history of the 1930s.<\/p>\n

Victor Hanson<\/p>\n

Selma, California<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, I don\u2019t know anything about Stanley Baldwin, but I\u2019ll assume your description of him is accurate. In that case, you have to stretch quite a bit to make Obama into Baldwin. For instance: You call Baldwin a pacifist. Obama is decidedly not a pacifist. He is a Niebuhrian realist […]<\/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":[6,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2DJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10089,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-is-americas-version-of-stanley-baldwin\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":0},"title":"Obama Is America\u2019s Version of Stanley Baldwin","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Both leaders put their successors in a dangerous geopolitical position. Last year, President Obama assured the world that \u201cwe are living in the most peaceful, prosperous, and progressive era in human history,\u201d and that \u201cthe world has never been less violent.\u201d Translated, those statements\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "George W. Bush"","block_context":{"text":"George W. Bush","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/george-w-bush\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10137,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-11\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":1},"title":"Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, \u00a0 Did you volunteer or were you drafted (like so many of us) to fight in Vietnam? Did you know \u201cwe\u201d lost that war to those so called \u201ccommies\u201d and now those \u201ccommies\u201d make Trump brand shirts and ties? \u00a0 Also, are you willing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10126,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10126-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":2},"title":"From an Angry Reader: Dear\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 25, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From an Angry Reader: Dear Continually Angry Reader Steve Faddy Hey Vic, I understand you are a historian, but please write a timely piece, maybe touching on the brilliant incoherence of the foreign policy of the Mad King Don. Obama is no longer the President. Write something relevant to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12220,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-02-28-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":3},"title":"Angry Reader 02-28-20","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Subject: Gray Matter Your articles are so offensively lacking in context, thoughtfulness, and reflection on history--basically simpleminded attack ads-- that I am going to erase the National Review\u2019s bookmark from my browser. And there is no case for Trump any more than there was a case\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":362,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/angry-reader-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":4},"title":"Angry Reader #3","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers Angry Reader #3 writes: I won\u2019t take the time to deconstruct your little essay line by line but trust me, almost everything you post is pure, unadulterated, kool-aid-inspired nonsense straight from the fever-swamp of the Reich-wing disinformation echo-chamber, all of it intended to create\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10180,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/from-an-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":10151,"position":5},"title":"From an Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"DR HANSON. \u00a0TRUMP TRAITOR IS A RUSSIAN SPY. I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING HIM IN JAIL WITH THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION. THE TRUMP JOKE PRESIDENCY IS GOING DOWN IN FLAMES. TRUMP FIRED COMEY TO CONCEAL HIS RUSSIAN CONNECTIONS. DEMOCRATS WILL BE IN POWER FOR 30 YEARS AFTER THE TRUMP DEBACLE. \u00a0-HEIN\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10151"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10154,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10151\/revisions\/10154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}