We\u2019ve all run across the pill bug in our gardens. At the first sign of danger, the tiny paranoid crustacean suddenly turns into a ball \u2014 in hopes the danger will have passed when he unrolls.<\/p>\n
That roly-poly bug can serve as a fair symbol of present-day U.S. foreign policy, especially in our understandable weariness over Iraq, Afghanistan, and the scandals that are overwhelming the Obama administration.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/BQrwx6tCUAAoFRl.png?resize=300%2C168&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
On August 4, U.S. embassies across the Middle East simply closed on the basis of intelligence reports of planned al-Qaeda violence. The shutdown of 21 diplomatic facilities was the most extensive in recent American history.<\/p>\n
Yet we still have over a month to go before the twelfth anniversary of the attacks on\u00a0September 11, 2001, an iconic date for radical Islamists.<\/p>\n
Such preemptive measures are no doubt sober and judicious. Yet if we shut down our entire public profile in the Middle East on the threat of terrorism, what will we do when more anti-American violence arises? Should we close more embassies for more days, or return home altogether?<\/p>\n
Apparently al-Qaeda did not get the message that the administration\u2019s euphemisms of \u201cworkplace violence,\u201d \u201coverseas contingency operations,\u201d \u201cman-caused disasters,\u201d and jihad as \u201ca holy struggle\u201d were intended as outreach to the global Muslim community.<\/p>\n
Instead, the terrorists are getting their second wind, as they interpret our loud magnanimity as weakness \u2014 or, more likely, simple confusion. They increasingly do not seem to fear U.S. retaliation for any planned assaults. Instead, al-Qaeda franchises expect Americans to adopt their new pill-bug mode of curling up until danger passes.<\/p>\n
Our enemies have grounds for such cockiness. President Obama promised swift punishment for those who attacked U.S. installations in Benghazi and killed four Americans. So far the killers roam free. Rumors abound that they have been seen publicly in Libya.<\/p>\n
Instead of blaming radical Islamist killers for that attack, the Obama reelection campaign team fobbed the assault off as the reaction to a supposedly right-wing, Islamophobic videomaker. That yarn was untrue and was greeted as politically correct appeasement in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
All these Libyan developments took place against a backdrop of \u201clead from behind.\u201d Was it wise for American officials to brag that the world\u2019s largest military had taken a subordinate role in removing Moammar Qaddafi \u2014 in a military operation contingent on approval from the United Nations and the Arab League but not the U.S. Congress?<\/p>\n
No one knows what to do about the mess in Syria. But when you do not know what to do, it is imprudent to periodically lay down \u201cred lines.\u201d Yet the administration has done just that to the Bashar al-Assad regime over the last two years.<\/p>\n
In a similar vein, the administration has so far issued serial \u201cdeadlines\u201d to the Iranians to cease the production of weapons-grade uranium. They don\u2019t seem much worried about yet another deadline.<\/p>\n
In Egypt, the United States went from abandoning ally and crook Hosni Mubarak to welcoming the freely elected and anti-American Muslim Brotherhood. Now, we are both praising and damning the military junta that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi. Do we still call that \u201cthe Arab Spring\u201d? Is a junta still a junta, a coup still a coup?<\/p>\n
Our entire anti-terrorism agenda is a paradox. Obama ran for office on the promise of shutting down Guantanamo Bay, curbing the Patriot Act, and ending renditions, preventive detention, and drone attacks. Then, in office, he went both hot and cold on all of them.<\/p>\n
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder hinted at trying accused terrorist killers such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian courts and holding\u00a0CIA\u00a0interrogators legally responsible for enhanced interrogations. Then, the administration abruptly dropped those bad ideas and embraced or expanded many of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols \u2014 and in many cases went far beyond anything envisioned by the prior administration.<\/p>\n
These paradoxes were not lost on our terrorist enemies. The successors to Osama bin Laden apparently guessed that the Obama administration might not like America\u2019s anti-terrorism policies any more than the terrorists themselves did.<\/p>\n
News that the FBI scrutinized and then apparently forgot about unhinged Islamists such as Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Major Nidal Malik Hasan sent the wrong message to terrorists. Was the Obama administration more worried about hurting feelings than it was concerned to prevent further attacks?<\/p>\n
Other rivals and enemies are now fully aware of our new pill-bug mode in the Middle East \u2014 and are willing to bet that it might apply everywhere. Without apparent worry over the U.S. reaction, Russia has given tentative asylum as a reward to Edward Snowden, who singlehandedly exposed \u2014 and sabotaged \u2014 a vast National Security Agency spying network. Increasingly, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan seem to be on their own with a bullying China, unsure whether to bend or resist.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the new American pill bug curls up in hopes that the mounting dangers will just go away.<\/p>\n
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution,<\/em>Stanford<\/em>\u00a0University<\/em>. His\u00a0<\/em>latest book is\u00a0<\/em>The Savior Generals<\/a>,<\/em><\/span>\u00a0published this spring by\u00a0<\/em>Bloomsbury<\/em>\u00a0Press. You can reach him by e-mailing\u00a0author@victorhanson.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a9\u00a02013 Tribune Content Agency, LLC<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Closing out embassies was prudent in the short term. But what message does it send? by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online We\u2019ve all run across the pill bug in our gardens. At the first sign of danger, the tiny paranoid crustacean suddenly turns into a ball \u2014 in hopes the danger will have passed […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[846,116,171],"tags":[1051,161,12,1065,162,1016,232],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1DR","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":461,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/storming-embassies-killing-ambassadors-and-smart-diplomacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":6315,"position":0},"title":"Storming Embassies, Killing Ambassadors, and ‘Smart’ Diplomacy","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The attacks on the US embassy yesterday in Cairo and the storming of the American consulate in Libya, where the US ambassador was murdered along with three staff members \u2014 and the initial official American reaction to the mayhem \u2014 are all reprehensible,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6417,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/now-what-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":6315,"position":1},"title":"Now What?","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online What are the president\u2019s strategic objectives in the present mess? Does he know? There are four general strategic options \u2014 predicated on the political fact that either the Congress will approve the operation or that the Obama administration will ignore\u00a0it\u00a0if\u00a0it doesn\u2019t, and that\u00a0Obama\u00a0is\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":7586,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americas-middle-east-dilemma\/","url_meta":{"origin":6315,"position":2},"title":"America\u2019s Middle East Dilemma","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Toppling tyrants is ineffective in the long term without years of unpopular occupation. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Two and a half years ago, the U.S. pulled every soldier out of a mostly quiet Iraq. 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