{"id":11870,"date":"2019-06-18T07:59:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T14:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=11870"},"modified":"2019-06-18T07:59:46","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T14:59:46","slug":"when-normality-became-abnormal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-normality-became-abnormal\/","title":{"rendered":"When Normality Became Abnormal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Donald Trump is many things. But one thing he is not is a defender of the 2009-2016 status quo and accepted progressive convention. Since 2017, everything has been in flux. Lots of past conventional assumptions of the Obama-Clinton-Romney-Bush generation were as unquestioned as they were suspect. No longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone knew the Iran deal was a way for the mullahs to buy time and hoard their oil profits, to purchase or steal nuclear technology, to feign moderation, and to trade some hostages for millions in terrorist-seeding cash, and then in a few years spring an announcement that it had the bomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No one wished to say that. Trump did. He canceled the flawed deal without a second thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Iran is furious, but in a far weaker\u2014and eroding\u2014strategic position with no serious means of escaping devastating sanctions, general impoverishment, and social unrest. So a desperate Tehran knows that it must make some show of defiance. Yet it accepts that if it were to launch a missile at a U.S. ship, hijack an American boat, or shoot down an American plane, the ensuing tit-for-tat retaliation might target the point of Iranian origin (the port that launched the ship, the airbase from which the plane took off, the silo from which the missile was launched) rather than the mere point of contact\u2014and signal a serial stand-off 10-1 disproportionate response to every Iranian attack without ever causing a Persian Gulf war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/amgreatness.com\/2019\/06\/16\/when-normality-became-abnormal\/\">Read the full article here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Donald Trump is many things. But one thing he is not is a defender of the 2009-2016 status quo and accepted progressive convention. Since 2017, everything has been in flux. Lots of past conventional assumptions of the Obama-Clinton-Romney-Bush generation were as unquestioned as they were suspect. No longer. Everyone [&hellip;]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-35s","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11224,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-bad-iranian-deal-was-always-going-to-get-worse\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":0},"title":"The Bad Iranian Deal Was Always Going to Get Worse","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 12, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The more we learn about it \u2014 as Iranian and Obama-administration deceptions are uncovered \u2014 the more we know it was a disaster from the start. When Donald Trump withdrew from the so-called Iran deal in early May, almost all conventional wisdom in Washington\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11876,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/we-hold-all-the-cards-in-the-showdown-with-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":1},"title":"We Hold All the Cards in the Showdown with Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness In May 2018, the Donald Trump Administration withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal. The United States then ramped up sanctions on the Iranian theocracy to try to ensure that it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Iran&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13844,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/strategika-74-the-prospects-of-a-new-iran-deal\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":2},"title":"Strategika #74: The Prospects of a New Iran Deal","author":"Victor Davis Hanson","date":"August 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Iran's Nuclear Program Please read a new essay by my colleague, Peter R. Mansoor in Strategika. The Biden administration came into office with the hope of reentering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)\u2014the nuclear deal with Iran\u2014and thereby reduce tensions in the Middle East, an area of the world\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9862,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-three-headed-hydra-of-the-middle-east\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":3},"title":"The Three-Headed Hydra of the Middle East","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Trump has inherited a matrix of problems that primarily stem from Iran, Russia, and ISIS. The abrupt Obama administration pre-election pullout from Iraq in 2011, along with the administration\u2019s failed reset with Russia and the Iran deal, created a three-headed hydra in the Middle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ISIS&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ISIS","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/isis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11434,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/mattis-is-more-valuable-than-ever\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":4},"title":"Mattis Is More Valuable Than Ever","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Michael O\u2019Hanlon presented\u00a0recently a persuasive argument why Defense Secretary James Mattis should stay on the job for at least the duration of Trump\u2019s first term in order to finish his current initiatives \u2014 apparently in response to unsubstantiated rumors that Mattis\u2019s reputation has grown\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;James Mattis&quot;","block_context":{"text":"James Mattis","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-mattis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11881,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/america-can-afford-to-stay-calm-with-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":11870,"position":5},"title":"America Can Afford to Stay Calm with Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness President Trump recently ordered and then called off a retaliatory strike against Iran for destroying a U.S. surveillance drone. The U.S. asserts that the drone was operating in international space. Iran claims it was in Iranian airspace. Antiwar critics of Trump\u2019s Jacksonian rhetoric turned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Donald Trump&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870"}],"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=11870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11871,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11870\/revisions\/11871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}