by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n Thoughts on Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) \u00a0Why did we reject the Bush policy of non-engagement with a monster like Ahmadinejad, who oppressed his own and threatened nuclear destruction to Israel? Is it all that moral, or all that wise, or all that much in U.S. realpolitik interests to apologize to a thug? Does it show solidarity with the Iranian people to court a nut? What is so smart in making Iran the center of our attention rather than the Maliki democratic government in Iraq? Hamas rather than democratic Israel? Is what we are now seeing in the streets of Iran proof of all the praise once heaped on theocratic \u201cdemocratic\u201d Iran by the likes of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>?<\/p>\n 2) Will someone please tell President Obama that when you send videos to Ahmadinejad, apologize for something that happened over a half-century ago, and ignore serial Iranian killing of Iraqi and American democrats in Iraq, you send a message that implicitly you either approve of him \u2014 or are afraid of him? One of two things is happening in Iran: either a boasting, cocky Ahmadinejad rigged the election, without worry that anyone \u2014 much less the present U.S. \u2014 would care. Or, if the election result is semi-accurate (I doubt it), he energized his base, by showing the rural believers that even much worshipped Barack Hussein Obama was courting their all-wise leader and\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0agreeing to the new Persian Islamic nuclear hegemony.<\/p>\n 3) So what constitutes Obama\u2019s morality? Courting the Islamic street by distorting history? Being more critical of one\u2019s own democratic open society than the autocratic Arab governments you seek to placate? Using your middle name abroad to court favor and separate yourself from America\u2019s past, while insisting that those who invoke it at home are as illiberal as you are liberal in broadcasting it?<\/p>\n 4) Much of Iran wants what they see going on in Iraq. How odd that the \u2018experts\u2019 assured us that Bush had empowered Iran by removing his rival Saddam. Perhaps in the short term \u2014 but in the long term TV, radio, and osmosis from free Iraq is proving more destabilizing to the theocracy in Iran than are Iran\u2019s Revolutionary Guards and shaped charged IEDs to Iraq.<\/p>\n 5) As Aristotle saw, amorality is as much an absence of moral judgment as it is a commission of sin. When Obama lavishes more attention on Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Ahmadinejad, or a Saudi royal than he does on our struggling democratic friends in Iraq, Israel, Columbia and eastern Europe, he sends a message: \u2018I wish to be loved, adored, to be seen as absolutely even-handed, even more than I do to take risks for those of you who bravely risk even more by championing freedom and consensual government.\u2019<\/p>\n 6) In Obama\u2019s morally equivalent universe, when all leaders are alike, when there is no moral difference between nations, when a handful of classical texts that survived only in Arabic written by Muslims are equivalent to the entire transmission of classical learning through thousands of manuscripts in Europe, then there is no A or B, just AB, then there is no bad or good, no nothing really. Yes, he certainly is not a \u201cManichean\u201d like Bush, who saw the world in moral absolutes. Yes, but he is certainly also a moral relativist, who cannot distinguish an Ahmadinejad from a Maliki, a Netanyahu from Abbas, a Chavez from an Uribe.<\/p>\n Everything is contingent on being liked, or rather worshipped. I was proud of Bush when Chavez trashed him, when Ahmadinejad blasted Bush, when Putin slurred Bush \u2014 and very worried when they began to court Obama whom they either saw as a patsy to be used or a friend \u2014 to be used. Years from now do we really think there will be some great revisionism and the world will come to love the \u2018peacemaker\u2019 Chamberlain or Baldwin, and despise the troublemaker Churchill?<\/p>\n I think not.<\/p>\n Obama has applause for the moment, it is true, but for all our sakes, he better start thinking of respect from the ages.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Thoughts on Iran 1) \u00a0Why did we reject the Bush policy of non-engagement with a monster like Ahmadinejad, who oppressed his own and threatened nuclear destruction to Israel?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[715],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Gw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2643,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-new-liberal-realism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s New Liberal Realism","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama abandoned Wilsonianism to avoid supporting Iranian democracy. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online President Obama has largely drawn praise for his tepid response to the mass uprisings in Iran challenging the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In general, Obama has offered three justifications for his tentativeness \u2014 and they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3729,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/talking-to-iran-moral-and-strategic-mistake\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":1},"title":"Talking to Iran: Moral and Strategic Mistake","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 18, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services One of the many bizarre recommendations in the recently released report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is the call to talk with Iran. A formal dialogue with the present Iranian leadership is, for a number of reasons, as misguided as it is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2006"","block_context":{"text":"December 2006","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2006\/december-2006\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2638,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/voting-present-on-iran-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":2},"title":"Voting Present on Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Apparently the Obama administration is quietly watching the situation, serially voting present, and unwilling to say much until the final outcome is certain. Meanwhile, debate here centers around whether Bush\u2019s past \u201cAxis of Evil\u201d approach to Iran\u2019s theocracy, or Obama\u2019s \u201cWe are sorry for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3640,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nuclear-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":3},"title":"Nuclear Iran?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Imprimis \u201cThe skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.\u201d So rants Iran\u2019s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2007"","block_context":{"text":"April 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/april-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3686,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tapping-ahmadinejads-egg\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":4},"title":"Tapping Ahmadinejad’s Egg","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services We all know the Iranian M.O. \u2014 nuclear proliferation, Holocaust denial, threats to wipe out Israel, vicious anti-Western rhetoric, lavish sponsorship of terrorists at work attacking Israel and destabilizing Lebanon. If that were not enough, we now learn that Iran has been sending\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2007"","block_context":{"text":"February 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/february-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2632,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thoughts-on-america-and-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":2636,"position":5},"title":"Thoughts on America and Iran","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Thugophilia Isn't Moral 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636"}],"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=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2637,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions\/2637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}