by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
National Review Online<\/em><\/p>\n Remember the medieval fable about the mice that wanted their dangerous enemy, the cat, belled, but each preferred not to be the one to attempt the dangerous deed? Likewise, the world\u2019s bad actors have long wanted America belled, but, like the mice, so far they have not been stupid or daring enough to test America\u2019s teeth and claws \u2014 that is, until now.<\/p>\n In 2008, Barack Obama campaigned on the general principle that the entire Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols were either superfluous or illegal. That opportunistic posturing resonated with a world audience eager for confessions of American wrongdoing. It probably helped to undermine US influence abroad.<\/p>\n But no matter, all was forgotten at home the following year, when President Obama embraced or indeed expanded all the protocols he had once demagogued. Soon, as Predator-in-Chief, he increased the drone-assassination tally by a factor of ten. Other nations watched this about-face and took note of such opportunism for future reference.<\/p>\n \u201cReset\u201d with Russia was predicated on the notion that George Bush, not the Russian autocracy, was responsible for the deterioration in Russian-American relations. Under reset, Barack Obama was more critical of his predecessor than he was of Vladimir Putin. The Russians were not na\u00efve, and today they assume that the United States surely should blame itself, not Russia, when the two nations are at odds. If anything, Russia has become more autocratic at home and more bellicose abroad.<\/p>\n As a candidate, Obama ridiculed the Bush commitment to missile defense \u2014 only, as president, to extend such a capability to allies like Turkey and Japan that felt threatened by neighbors. In the latest crisis with North Korea, Obama has beefed up anti-missile defenses on our own West Coast. That erratic message was also not lost on world observers. The Hagel appointment and the sequester confirmed the impression that while Obama relies on the US military, it is a military that he himself would never have created or funded and that he sees as a cultural laboratory where social change \u2014 such as overt gay service and women in combat \u2014 can be fast-tracked without the messiness of dealing with Congress, rather than as a force to ensure deterrence.<\/p>\n From sizing up Bashar Assad to deposing Saddam Hussein (he was for it before he was against it), the one constant with the new secretary of state, John Kerry, is less that he is often wrong than that he is predictably zealous in promoting the shifting course of what is perceived to be felt by 51 percent of Americans on any given day. Kerry, as a rich, Ivy League, liberal Massachusetts grandee, is an expert in deciphering an undiscovered human element, a \u201cWe can do business with him\u201d good side \u2014 unapparent to less sophisticated others \u2014 in most of the world\u2019s monsters.<\/p>\n It would not have been costly to keep a small garrison in Iraq to prod the Maliki government to stay reasonable and Iran to stay out of Iraqi airspace, and there was no need to announce timetables of withdrawal from Afghanistan even as we surged troops. But Obama realized that Americans were war weary, and he wanted to be done with both of the so-called Bush wars. Ending the conflicts, rather than ensuring that they ended well, was Obama\u2019s concern, a fact of interest to those in the Middle East. He was certainly no Harry Truman, who told Americans exhausted by World War II that they had another existential struggle on the horizon \u2014 and with their erstwhile wartime partner, Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union, every bit as evil and dangerous as Hitler\u2019s Germany.<\/p>\n We belatedly embraced the Arab Spring just as it was turning to winter. Mohamed Morsi understands that he can be both a recipient of American aid and a critic of America, and he believes that while US-Israeli ties are ostensibly not changed, deep down Obama might like them to be. The more radical Egypt becomes, the more President Morsi is certain that Obama agrees that it is more authentically Egyptian. Morsi, like others in the Middle East, understands that \u201clead from behind,\u201d Benghazi, serial deadlines for Iran, and lectures about intervening and not intervening in Syria all add up to speaking loudly and carrying a tiny stick \u2014 or simply to incoherence. Warning America is the new world pastime: North Korea warns that it might nuke the West Coast; Hamas warns the president not to visit the Temple Mount; China warns us to keep out of its dispute with Japan.<\/p>\n Any one of these developments in and of itself would hardly be noticed; together, they suggest a pattern of assuming that America thinks it can keep order in the postwar global order by occasional lectures and sermons, as if it were the UN with a few aircraft carriers.<\/p>\n North Korea\u2019s usual lunacy seems lately a little too lunatic. Maybe it is the new leadership in Seoul or Pyongyang, or a sense in the North that the US no longer has the heart to fight for South Korea, or to defend Japan or Taiwan against an ascendant nuclear China. In any case, when the Obama administration talked grandly of downsizing its strategic nuclear arsenal, many in Asia wondered whether they were still safely under the vast American nuclear umbrella. They had apparently suffered under the delusion that America had so many nukes mainly because it had so many allies that had the capability to go nuclear, but did not do so because America assured them that there was no need to. Obama talks of a pivot to Asia, but it is more like a divot, a small sort of embarrassing missed swing that has little to do with much of anything.<\/p>\n Polls show that the American public overwhelmingly considers Canada and the UK to be America\u2019s closest allies. But while we give billions of dollars to the Pakistanis and the Palestinians, whom, Gallup also tells us, Americans like least of all the peoples of the world, we have shunned the Canadians on the Keystone Pipeline and are officially neutral on the \u201cMalvinas\u201d (or, in Obamaspeak, \u201cMaldives\u201d) \u2014 a.k.a. the Falklands. I think the message is that enemies of the US are now neutrals \u2014 but so are friends.<\/p>\n A bow here, a \u201cWhat does Benghazi matter?\u201d there (remember the boasts about bringing the perpetrators to justice?), the Muslim world as catalyst for Western culture, a musing out loud that America is about as exceptional as Greece, half-apologies about genocide among those who were past masters at it, lectures to Israel, laurels to Turkey \u2014 all this day-by-day Oz-like fantasy is absolutely trivial. But is it so cumulatively after four years?<\/p>\n North Korea, Iran, Hezbollah, and China have translated the incoherent and anecdotal into a predictable pattern of behavior, applicable to the fundamental, not just the irrelevant. And the conclusion results in something like this: While there is some chance that the US may still in the old way rise to face regional crises, there is now a real likelihood, the first since the\u00a0annus mirabilis<\/em>\u00a0of 1980, that it may not.<\/p>\n In short, we are living in dangerous times not seen since Jimmy Carter\u2019s disastrous last year in office, when a moralist kindred to Obama was widely praised for his ecumenical statesmanship \u2014 and when the Russians, the Chinese, and the Islamists began invading their neighbors and killing people.<\/p>\n Opportunists abroad \u2014 rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly \u2014 believe that if there was ever a time to readjust the regional landscape without too much risk, that time is coming, as the once-lean feline that used to prowl the yard outside has become a bloated pussycat purring on the kitchen mat.<\/p>\n The more unhinged on the world scene may move first to try to bell the American cat, but even if they are only partially successful, the more rational will be emboldened to follow suit \u2014 convinced that the unhinged were not so unhinged after all.<\/p>\n \u00a92013 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Remember the medieval fable about the mice that wanted their dangerous enemy, the cat, belled, but each preferred not to be the one to attempt the dangerous deed?<\/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":[846,116],"tags":[119,12,249,1045,308,74,442,1065,1071,1074,250,162,552],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-OD","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-hypocritic-oath\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Hypocritic Oath","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men \u201cthem\u201d who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides \u2014 and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Second Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"Second Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/second-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5939,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/terrorism-as-therapy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":1},"title":"Terrorism as Therapy","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 13, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of contemporary terrorism. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online One common theme emerges from the hearings over the Benghazi disaster: The Obama administration is intent on downplaying the Islamic roots of terrorists who harbor an existential hatred of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1871,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-versus-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":2},"title":"Obama versus Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There is little need any more to offer consistent opposition to Barack Obama, since he himself is already running hard against the many previous incarnations of Barack Obama.\u00a0 The first one we met was Barack\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3174,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/blame-bush-obama-or-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":3},"title":"Blame Bush, Obama–or Us?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services When someone screams about a terrible policy of the present administration, just pose four questions: First, was the controversial decision taken with bipartisan support? Second, were there precedents for such action in prior Democratic administrations? Third, will such polices continue under the newly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2008"","block_context":{"text":"December 2008","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2008\/december-2008\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5911,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-borg\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":4},"title":"The Obama Borg","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"How \"man-caused disasters\" replaced Islamist terrorism in the Obama lexicon. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0lore, the Borg\u00a0was a collective of servile drone operatives that sought to assimilate other species into\u00a0its \u201chive mind.\u201d Something akin to that creepy groupthink arose when the Obama administration took power and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2386,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/whats-off-the-table-in-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":3139,"position":5},"title":"What’s Off the Table in 2012?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services What should we\u00a0not\u00a0expect during next summer\u2019s presidential campaign, given what was put off limits in 2008 and later? There is much talk about what some are perceiving as the fringe religiosity of Republican candidates such as Michele Bachman and Rick Perry. But the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139"}],"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=3139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5720,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions\/5720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}