by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/p>\n President Barack Obama is being praised for choosing an Arabic TV network for his first formal television interview: the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel. I think we can all appreciate the thinking behind such bold outreach, given that the media at home has chortled to the world that our new guy\u2019s unusual background, in sort of Zen-fashion, has befuddled the radical Islamic movement.<\/p>\n The subtext of our satisfaction has been that Obama \u2014 African-American, son of a Muslim father, erstwhile resident of Muslim Indochina, with Hussein as his middle name \u2014 makes it far harder for the Arab Islamic world to typecast America unfairly as the Great Satan than would be true in the case of an evangelical, Texas-drawling, hard-core conservative Chief Executive like good \u2018ole boy George Bush.<\/p>\n True enough, no doubt.<\/p>\n But triangulation is a touchy art and it takes the genius of a Dick Morris cum soulless Bill Clinton to pull off such disingenuousness. In less experienced hands it can be explosive and turn on its user. And Obama will soon learn the dangerous game he is playing. Consider:<\/p>\n 1) When abroad it is not wise to criticize your own country and praise the antithetical world view of another \u2014 especially if yours is a democratic republic and the alternative is a theocratic monarchy that has a less than liberal record on human rights, treatment of women and homosexuals, and tolerance for religious plurality. \u2026 All too often the United States starts by dictating\u2026in the past on some of these issues\u2026and we don\u2019t always know all the factors that are involved. So let\u2019s listen\u2026Well, here\u2019s what I think is important. Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia\u2026I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage\u2026to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The end, if unintended, result is that the Saudi King comes across as courageous, while the U.S. President and State Department (e.g., \u201cthe United States\u201d) are portrayed as dictatorial-like (\u201cdictating\u201d) in the region.<\/p>\n 2) An unspoken rule of American statesmanship is not to be overtly partisan abroad. And in Obama\u2019s case it is high time to arrest the campaign mode, cease the implied \u201cBush did it\u201d (which\u00a0ipso facto\u00a0<\/em>has a short shelf life), and begin dealing with the world as it is, rather than the world you feel was unfairly presented to you by someone more blameworthy in the past. But again consider:<\/p>\n But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task\u2026 And so what we want to do is to listen, set aside some of the preconceptions that have existed and have built up over the last several years. And I think if we do that, then there\u2019s a possibility at least of achieving some breakthroughs\u2026 but I think that what you\u2019ll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I\u2019m speaking to them, as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Perhaps. But once again, the impression comes across as \u2018past America bad\u2019\/\u2018present and future America good.\u2019 (Even the senior George Bush learned that lesson at home with his serial \u201ckinder, gentler nation\u201d [e.g., kinder than what?]). And nothing is offered here (other than our lack of a colonial past) about the actual impressive record: amazing American good will in saving Kuwait, objecting to the Kuwaiti deportations of thousands of Palestinians, speaking out against Russia on behalf of the Chechens, trying to save the Somalis, bombing a Christian European Serbia to save the Kosovar and Bosnian Muslims, helping the Afghans against the Soviets, removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and trying to invest a $1 trillion in fostering democracy in their places, billions in disease relief for black (and often Muslim) Africa, timely help to the Muslim victims of the tsunami, and liberal immigration laws that welcome in millions of Arabs and\/or Muslims. I could go on but you get the picture left out that America, far better than China, Russia, or Europe, has been quite friendly to the Muslim world.<\/p>\n Instead the supposition is that somehow the culpability is largely ours \u2014 and therefore ours to rectify. In fact, the widespread hatred in the Islamic world, manifested, and sometime applauded, on September 11, was largely a result of the failures of indigenous autocracy \u2014 whether in the past Pan-Arabist, Baathist, theocratic and Islamic, Nasserite, or pro-Soviet statism.<\/p>\n Such repression and failed economic policies, coupled with the sudden ability of a long-suffering populace in a globalized world to fathom that things were bad in the Middle East but no so bad elsewhere, led to growing anger and frustration. That state megaphones (in a devil\u2019s bargain with radical Islamists) preached that the real culprit of general Muslim misery was neither Islamic terrorism nor state dictators nor gender apartheid nor religious intolerance nor state-run economies, but solely the fault of America and the Jews hardly helped.<\/p>\n We should also remember that the Bush record was often quite good: we have not been hit in over seven years; Pakistan\u2019s nuclear proliferation was stopped; Libya gave up its nuclear program; Syria is out of Lebanon; Hamas and Hezbollah have suffered a great deal of damage as a result of their aggressions; there are constitutional governments at work in place of the Taliban and Saddam; the leadership of al Qaeda is scattered and depleted and its brand is diminished in Iraq. The fact that Middle East authoritarian governments might not like all of that; or that radical Muslims find this disturbing; or even that the spokesmen for the unfree populations of the Arab world object \u2014 simply does not change the truth. I wish President Obama better appreciated that simple fact, because he surely is a beneficiary of it<\/p>\n 3). Beware of the dangerous two-step. For nearly two years the unspoken rule of the campaign (ask former Senator Bob Kerry or Hillary Clinton herself or talk-show host Bill Cunningham) was that mentioning Obama\u2019s Muslim ancestry was taboo. It was illiberal to evoke his Muslim-sounding name or his Indonesian ancestry, as if one were deliberately trying to suggest his multicultural fides made him less appealing to the square majority in America. But Obama apparently himself is immune to such prohibitions \u2014 at least abroad. If he appreciates the off-limits landscape at home, overseas it is suddenly to be showcased to reemphasize his global, multicultural and less parochial credentials. E.g., it comes off as something like: \u2018between you and me \u2014 typical Americans could not relate to you the way I can \u2014 even though back in America to even suggest that I am not typical is sometimes the greatest of sins \u2014 albeit in the manner I adjudicate.\u2019 Consider again:<\/p>\n Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect. I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries\u2026The largest one, Indonesia. And so what I want to communicate is the fact that in all my travels throughout the Muslim world, what I\u2019ve come to understand is that regardless of your faith \u2014 and America is a country of Muslims, Jews, Christians, non-believers \u2014 regardless of your faith, people all have certain common hopes and common dreams.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 4) At some point, soaring rhetoric makes banality the harder to accept. For all the talking about path- breaking new\/old envoy George Mitchell, and the new President\u2019s background, and the novel sensitivity, Obama offered nothing new on the Middle East and Iran, because (1) there is very little new to be offered; and (2) George Bush, apart from the caricatures, was by 2004 about as multilateral as one can be; consider the Quartet, the EU3, the U.N. efforts at international disarmament with Iran, the use of NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Coalition in Iraq, the efforts to promote constitutional government in the Middle East, and on and on.<\/p>\n There is a danger here that Obama\u2019s hope and change on the Middle East will start to resemble his hope and change on new governance in Washington: utopian promises about absolutely new ethics, followed by the same old, same old as exemplified by the ethical problems encountered by Geithner, Holder, Lynn, Richardson \u2014 and by extension Blago, Dodd, Frank, and Rangel. Again, saintly rhetoric only highlights earthly behavior. Again, that may well work, but also in time may prove not to be what Americans thought they were voting for. So a final Neanderthal thought: some of us would like our President in calm, polite and diplomatic tones to emphasize the past positive Middle East work of his predecessor Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. He should make the case that the United States has tried hard and will try hard again to promote peace in the Middle East, but that certain fundamental facts make that awfully difficult, and often are beyond our control, resting largely in the decisions that others make for themselves \u2014 and the inevitable reactions that will follow from a liberal democracy like our own, faced with clear signs of religious intolerance, illiberality, violent aggression, and complicity in the promotion of terror as a political means. In other words, I think Syria, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Pakistan \u2014 and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and others \u2014 know exactly what they are doing and thus the problems that arise between us transcend occasional and unfortunate smoke \u2018em out\/bring \u2018em on lingo.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media President Barack Obama is being praised for choosing an Arabic TV network for his first formal television interview: the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya news channel. I think we can all appreciate the thinking behind such bold outreach, given that the media at home has chortled to the world that our […]<\/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":[725],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Mh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9396,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-dream-of-muslim-outreach-has-become-a-nightmare\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":0},"title":"The Dream of Muslim Outreach Has Become a Nightmare","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Affirming Muslim grievances has only increased the Arab world\u2019s sense that Obama is weak. \u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. The soon-to-be\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":[]},{"id":7582,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lots-of-recent-man-caused-disasters\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":1},"title":"Lots of Recent Man-Caused Disasters","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Even the administration is now considering some sort of overseas contingency operation to cope with an outbreak of workplace violence worldwide. Each morning it seems we read that Islamic killers of Boko Haram have kidnapped or slaughtered more children. Israel alleges Hamas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9223,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-westerners-make-inviting-targets-for-terrorists\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":2},"title":"Why Westerners Make Inviting Targets for Terrorists","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online China has a long record of persecuting its Muslim minorities. Russia has brutally suppressed the separatist movement of the predominantly Muslim Chechens with bombing and shelling. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered airstrikes against Syrian Muslims without much worry over collateral damage. India\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":[]},{"id":7906,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/welcome-to-fantasy-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":3},"title":"Welcome to Fantasy Island","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 7, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media Listen to the president and one would think that he was in office during the financial crisis that began on September 15, 2008. For the nth time, Obama reminded the nation on 60 Minutes of the financial meltdown he inherited. That is his usual\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 13 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 13 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/welcome-to-fantasy-island\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via PJMedia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/obama_fantasy_island_with_disc_10-5-14-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3858,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thoughts-on-chaos-revolution-and-radicalism\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":4},"title":"Thoughts on Chaos, Revolution, and Radicalism","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Everywhere But Iraq? No one quite knows all the causes of the unrest in Tunisia, now spreading to Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, or how this will all end, and whether this seemingly middle-class revolt dovetails to the 2009 demonstrations in Iran\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6569,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/overseas-contingency-operations-and-such\/","url_meta":{"origin":2993,"position":5},"title":"Overseas Contingency Operations and Such","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 On the occasion of the outreach from Iran, and the embarrassment in Syria, it is wise to remember why and how our leaders became so inept at dealing with Islamists. The Tsarnaev brothers killed and maimed in service to their version of Islam. 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\nBut here\u2019s what Obama said:<\/p>\n
\nI am glad Obama confounds the radical and hostile Islamic world, if it is in fact true that he does. But we are witnessing a delicate balancing act in which he seems to be saying to us \u201cI am best representing you by distancing myself from you and your past\u201d.<\/p>\n