by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n The Meaning of Hagel and Brennan<\/strong><\/p>\n Chuck Hagel and John Brennan, given their long public service, will probably be confirmed. Their appointments will have a force-multiplying effect on our new foreign policy as it pertains to the Middle East. If one were to collate their speeches and more unfortunate statements, a surprisingly similar view of the world after 9\/11 emerges. And the result dovetails nicely with that of the president\u2019s. The latter\u2019s long-held beliefs will no longer be so carefully guarded as in the past when reelection loomed. What most find shocking about some of the Hagel-Brennan statements on Israel, jihad, and US policy is precisely why they were appointed.<\/p>\n The Standard View<\/strong><\/p>\n In a word, the new Obama worldview does not subscribe to the more or less conventional American interpretation of the post-9\/11 Middle East. The prior orthodoxy can be summarized thusly: radical jihadists and Islamists scapegoated the West for the mostly self-inflicted wounds of the Middle East. Endemic tribalism, gender apartheid, statism, corruption, religious intolerance, fundamentalism, and an absence of transparency \u2014 in a globally connected world that is progressing without these burdens \u2014 best explain why the region is a remarkably poor place, despite enormous natural wealth.<\/p>\n In rage at the more successful systems abroad \u2014 who, after all, should not be successful given their obvious decadence and absence of piety \u2014 the Islamists call for a reactionary return to centuries-past glories. These mythologies are based on solutions found in sharia and the Koran rather than in liberalizing their societies.<\/p>\n The great masses of the Middle East are usually receptive to the arguments that secular Westernized authoritarian puppets \u2014 a Saddam, a Qaddafi, an Assad \u2014 are not natural manifestations and expressions of Middle East pathologies. Instead these mass killers are symptoms of neo-colonialism, Western conspiracies, foreign oil-intriguing, and an absence of indigenous fealty to Islam.<\/p>\n To the degree the Islamists humiliate the West without consequence and can offer some improvement, the strongmen piggyback on the payback and remain popular. To the degree they cannot, the verdict on their future is bleaker \u2014 as we see with the Arab Spring, and earlier with polls that recorded broad admiration for bin Laden following 9\/11, but very little after the so-called War on Terror and endemic Muslim-on-Muslim violence brought the ramifications of his extremism home to the Middle East everyman.<\/p>\n Finally, hatred and violence is usually directed at the US \u2014 and not to the same degree at Russia or China, whose records on Islam are far more intolerant than that of the West \u2014 largely because such grievances against the world\u2019s superpower better resonate worldwide, and because a self-critical America is so bothered by such dislike in a way not true of a Putin or the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n The Obama Orthodoxy<\/strong><\/p>\n In contrast, in the Brennan 2.0 view, which is shared by Hagel and Obama, jihad, Islamism, and Muslim intolerance are largely Western caricatures \u2014 a product of either Western ignorance of Middle East customs or willful prejudices. A far better approach than a \u201cwar on terrorism\u201d or zero-tolerance of Islamic hate-filled extremism toward the United States, or constant calls for Middle Easterners to reform, is a more subtle understanding of what drives such hatred \u2014 poverty, hopelessness, illiteracy \u2014 for which to some degree the West is culpable and therefore obligated to be patient with and understanding of otherwise incomprehensible rhetoric and violence.<\/p>\n This does not mean that the Obama administration will not expand drone targeted assassinations, or indeed, embrace or expand the very Bush-Cheney protocols (of which Brennan 1.0 was such a part). After all, a single 9\/11 repeat would traumatize American society and destroy the credibility of those in power.<\/p>\n Instead, the War on Terror mentality must be checked and \u201cbalanced\u201d by a more \u201cnuanced\u201d approach. Thus we hear of amateurish euphemisms (\u201coverseas contingency operations,\u201d \u201cman-caused disasters,\u201d etc.), therapeutic insights into the meaning of jihad, civilian trials for KSM, Miranda rights for Mutallab, possible judicial consequences for over-zealous CIA inquisitors, tough rhetoric for Israel\u2019s Likud Party, empathy for a Palestinian people \u201cin chains,\u201d below-the-radar, backchannel support for the Muslim Brotherhood\u2019s efforts at \u201cdemocracy,\u201d a casual, non-threatening security presence in Benghazi, the idea that Iran, like Pakistan, can be contained as a nuclear renegade, and expeditious exit from Iraq and Afghanistan regardless of circumstances on the ground. All this is adorned, as we saw with Hagel and Brennan, with loud, careerist, and often contradictory blasts against the Bush administration for which Brennan once worked and for whose war \u201cfor oil\u201d Hagel once voted for.<\/p>\n Sometimes these two general views overlap; neither is applicable to all situations; some analysts embrace elements of both interpretations. But that said, Hagel and Brennan illustrate an unchained \u201clet Obama be Obama\u201d worldview different from American policy since 9\/11, and so things will now start to change, perhaps quite rapidly, particularly in regards to Israel.<\/p>\n \u00a92013 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner The Meaning of Hagel and Brennan Chuck Hagel and John Brennan, given their long public service, will probably be confirmed. Their appointments will have a force-multiplying effect on our new foreign policy as it pertains to the Middle East. If one were to collate their speeches and more unfortunate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[28,46],"tags":[12,60,1017,61,1022,1016,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1X","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6431,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-fundamental-absence-of-seriousness\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":0},"title":"A Fundamental Absence of Seriousness","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner \u00a0 We are told hypocrisies are Obama\u2019s problem: Republicans who are usually pro-war don\u2019t support this war only because of Obama; Democrats who are usually anti-war can\u2019t support this war for Obama without being shown up as sudden pro-war hypocrites. Some of that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1469,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/american-recessional\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":1},"title":"American Recessional","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Republicans and Democrats are blaming one another for impending cuts to the defense budget brought about by sequestration. But with serial annual deficits of $1 trillion-plus and an aggregate debt nearing $17 trillion, the United States \u2014 like an insolvent Rome and exhausted\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Diplomacy"","block_context":{"text":"Diplomacy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/diplomacy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7075,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/sacrificing-the-military-to-entitlements\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":2},"title":"Sacrificing the Military to Entitlements","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 Vladimir Putin, playing geopolitical chess while our president plays tiddlywinks, has effectively taken over Crimea. Armed men, looking suspiciously like Russian military personnel, have seized both airports and established border checkpoints decorated with Kalashnikovs and Russian flags. This comes after other armed men seized\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ukraine"","block_context":{"text":"Ukraine","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/europe\/ukraine\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, center, is escorted by U.S. Air Force Gen. Jack Weinstein after arriving at the missile alert facility and launch control center at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., Jan. 9, 2014. Hagel was on a two-day trip to visit commands in the western United States.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/800px-thumbnail.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9769,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/its-no-revelation-that-intelligence-agencies-are-politicized\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":3},"title":"It\u2019s No Revelation That Intelligence Agencies Are Politicized","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 19, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Trump is acknowledging a fact that recent history has repeatedly demonstrated. Furor has arisen over President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s charges that our intelligence agencies are politicized. Spare us the outrage. For decades, directors of intelligence agencies have often quite inappropriately massaged their assessments to fit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6429,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/if-it-wasnt-syria-it-would-have-been-something-else\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":4},"title":"If It Wasn’t Syria, It Would Have Been Something Else","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner It is very\u00a0possible that the president will not obtain a join authorization to bomb Syria; if he chooses to go ahead and attack anyway, Obama will incite a constitutional crisis\u2014the first time in history that a president has decided to go to war\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":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9165,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-buck-never-stops-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":121,"position":5},"title":"The Buck Never Stops Here","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Tribune Media Services In a cover story in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine, President Obama offers astonishing scapegoating for his own foreign policy disasters.According to Obama, the deterioration of the ISIS wasteland that is now Libya was not due to improvident administration bombing followed\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"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=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}