by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n Thugophilia Isn’t Moral<\/strong><\/p>\n I think we are going to see, incrementally, perhaps, a rise in the ratings of former president Bush.Iraq is proving to be amazingly resilient, not only functioning as a democracy, but by withstanding the best efforts of Iran to kill it off, proving destabilizing to Iran itself.<\/p>\n <\/em>By removing Saddam, and trying to isolate Ahmadinejad and appeal to the Iranian people, Bush at least tried to prep the landscape for democratic change.<\/p>\n <\/em>In contrast, Obama’s past siren calls to quit Iraq, the “optional” war, his snubbing of Maliki, his ahistorical efforts to charm the Islamic Street, and apologies to theocratic Iran while lavishing attention on Ahmadinejad put him on the wrong side of history.<\/p>\n <\/em>If Obama were wise, he would get out pronto a statement condemning the anti-democratic violence of the Iranian government, and suggesting it follow the Iraq example of free and internationally inspected elections.<\/p>\n At some point, one should see that moral equivalence and multicultural non-judgementalism, however catchy for the moment, are as stupid as they are amoral, and will put the U.S. in a foolish, “make it up as we go along” position.<\/p>\n Can we at least see an end to all the past Iranian fluff offered by Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0columnists as over the years they praised what they claimed was a good start for democracy?<\/p>\n How did it come to pass that the Left thought cozying up to a brutal thug like Ahmadinejad was proof of statecraft superior to Bush’s tough position that he was a nut and at odds with the aspirations for freedom of the Iranian people?<\/p>\n The New Old Realism<\/strong><\/p>\n Much of the regular critiques of America during the Bush years as “imperialist,” “colonialist,” and “militaristic” were offered by rather thuggish regimes in Venezuela, Palestine, and Iran, while governments in Colombia, Iraq, and Israel were largely pro-American.<\/p>\n But since January, we have paid more attention to the former and less to the latter. We do not wish to “interfere” and condemn a state such as Iran that rigged an election and stifled free expression, but have no qualms about reading the riot act to Israel. Maliki, I wager, has received less attention from the present administration than has Ahmadinejad (the conventional wisdom of the Left the last few years was oddly “leave Iraq and its democracy, and engage Iran’s autocracy”).<\/p>\n Other examples could be cited, and the disturbing conclusion seems to be that to the extent an autocracy mouths boilerplate, Hollywood-type, anti-American sentiment, especially about the last eight years of American governance (cf. Bill Clinton’s 2005 Davos encomium of Iran as “the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections”), it now deserves attention; to the extent a nation supported U.S. democratic aims and aspirations abroad, it is now looked upon in askance, as if thinking, “Why would you guys have liked the U.S. before we came along?”<\/p>\n The issue of whether countries in these pairings \u2014 Iran\/Iraq, Hamas\/Israel, or Venezuela\/Colombia \u2014 respect consensual government seems largely irrelevant, as if a multicultural veneer of “not judging others with arbitrary Western paradigms” is (at best) the kinder, friendlier version of the old realist “Let them do what they want to each other and we’ll deal with the thug that emerges in terms of our own national interest.”<\/p>\n It’s Beginning to Become a Little Embarrassing . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n With all due respect to the president’s concern not to be seen “meddling” in voicing support for those in the street agitating for free and fair elections, everyone meddles in everyone else’s elections (Have we forgotten Iranian efforts from 2003-8 to destroy democracy in Iraq?). And it worked both ways. The United States practically ordered the Shah out of Iran after working behind the scenes to undermine him. We went on the record in various ways to bolster demonstrations in the Ukraine, Chile, Serbia, Poland, and elsewhere. No country has done more to meddle in the affairs of others in order not to bolster, but to destroy democracy than has Iran. Just ask the Lebanese and Iraqis.<\/p>\n One can sympathize with worry not to undermine the resistance by being tied to it, or being concerned about nuclear weapons, or trying to figure the odds of who will win, but all that said, it’s starting to get a little shameful for the professed humanitarian Obama to be seen so nakedly uninterested in the hundreds of thousands in the streets of Tehran both voicing values similar to our own, and ridiculing a government that for 30 years has serially killed Americans, promoted worldwide terror, and violated international agreements.<\/p>\n We are now well below the Ford administration’s 1975 snubbing of Solzhenitsyn.<\/p>\n
\nIn 2004 the Kerry campaign made a big deal over the Iranians’ stated preference for Bush (e.g., the Kerry campaign responded:\u00a0“It is telling that this president has received the endorsement of a member of the axis of evil.”) The same year British subjects were hectoring voters of swing-state Ohio not to vote for Bush. In 2008, Palestinians were manning phone banks on the West Bank to raise money for Obama.<\/p>\n