{"id":6386,"date":"2013-08-28T14:06:51","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T21:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6386"},"modified":"2013-09-30T11:25:43","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:25:43","slug":"our-contrary-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-contrary-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Contrary President"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Remember the \u201ccontrary\u201d Sioux warrior from\u00a0Little Big Man? He did everything backwards\u2013\u2013said \u201chello\u201d for \u201cgoodbye,\u201d washed in sand instead of water. Our president is the foreign policy contrary. He has gotten backwards every maxim of proven wisdom for dealing with the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt counseled, \u201cSpeak softly and carry \"\"a big stick,\u201d but Obama has spoken loudly and carried a little stick. Churchill said, \u201cYou can always count on Americans to do the right thing\u2014after they\u2019ve tried everything else.\u201d Obama can be always counted on to do the wrong thing\u2013\u2013before he\u2019s tried anything else. The Roman general Sulla was \u201cno better friend, and no worse enemy.\u201d Obama has been no better enemy, and no worse friend.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s malignant narcissism explains a lot of this incompetence. His belief in his own transformational personality has blinded him to reality, and given him the delusions of omnipotence more typical of a child. You have to go back to Neville Chamberlain to find a major world leader so dangerously deluded by self-regard. Whenever Obama speaks to the world, I\u2019m reminded of Chamberlain preening before his cabinet during the Munich crisis, telling his ministers that he was \u201csatisfied Hitler was speaking the truth,\u201d and that \u201che had established some degree of personal influence over Herr Hitler,\u201d and that Hitler \u201cwould not deliberately deceive a man whom he respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can imagine Obama after his Cairo speech, thinking the Muslim Brothers he had sat in the front row were similarly enchanted with his world-transforming magnificence and persuasive brilliance. More likely they looked at him like the T-Rex in\u00a0Jurassic Park\u00a0getting ready to dine on the tethered goat. You know, the look Putin gets on his face whenever he and The One are in the same room.<\/p>\n

But Obama\u2019s failures go beyond his personality. They reflect the delusions of modernity that the gruesome excesses of traditional Islam\u2019s pre-modern mentality have exposed. We watch the violence in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt, and we wag our diplomatic fingers, scold the perpetrators with our \u201cconcern,\u201d counsel \u201crestraint\u201d and \u201creconciliation,\u201d start U.N. \u201cinvestigations,\u201d threaten to withhold military hardware or foreign-aid swag, and indulge various other substitutes of words for deeds. We think that those hard, cruel men doing the killing just need to be reminded of universal human rights, tolerance, peaceful coexistence, and the marginalization of state violence that all took several centuries to evolve in the West, but that never have been much on display in Middle Eastern Islamic societies. On the contrary, history shows that violence against one\u2019s political, religious, and sectarian enemies, sanctioned as it is by Islamic theology, is a perfectly rational and legitimate tool of power in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s worse, we refuse to accept that if we sincerely think we are morally obligated to stop that violence, then diplomatic talk, economic sanctions, \u201cno-fly zones,\u201d and other half-measures aren\u2019t going to work. Massive force employed to kill the bad guys will be necessary. That\u2019s how Hussein, who made Bashar al-Assad look like a Unitarian Scoutmaster, was stopped after 12 years of fruitless U.N. resolutions and sanctions. That\u2019s how the equally murderous Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan. And even then, killing the thugs is just the beginning. You have to stick around and keep killing thugs for as long as it takes. What you can\u2019t do is the opposite, which is what our contrary president did\u2013\u2013announce a date-certain withdrawal, and then leave whether the conditions were strategically right for going or not, thus squandering the sacrifice and success of our troops. Hence the spectacle of Iraq today, as it relentlessly slides backwards into domination by Iran and slaughter by resurgent Sunni terrorists, with Afghanistan promising to follow the same trajectory after we leave next year.<\/p>\n

Our contrary commander-in-chief made the same blunder in Syria. If there was a moment when intervention might have been successful, when it was the \u201cright thing\u201d to try, it is long gone. Now even if we destroy the Assad regime, we will bring to power various jihadist outfits that will damage our interests and those of our allies in the region even more than Assad has. If we don\u2019t, and Assad survives, Iran and its Hezbollah minions become the dominant regional power, Russia strengthens its foothold in the region, and our allies like Egypt, the Gulf Emirates, and Saudi Arabia\u2013\u2013already disgusted with our treating \u201cfriends\u201d like Mubarak as if they are enemies, and enemies like the terrorist Muslim Brothers as if they are friends\u2013\u2013will start looking around for a more reliable ally, perhaps a Pakistan ready to sell them some nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

The brief window of intervention having closed, however, now the President \u201cWeighs Plans to Punish Assad,\u201d\u00a0as the\u00a0Wall Street Journal\u00a0announced. Having failed to try the \u201cright thing,\u201d now\u2019s he contemplating doing the \u201cwrong thing.\u201d But even if that headline is not just more \u201cloud talk,\u201d in the event the intervention \u201cstick\u201d won\u2019t be big enough or the commitment long enough to make a definitive difference. It will only end up providing the jihadist\u00a0Der St\u00fcrmer\u00a0Al-Jazeera in America with graphic footage of innocent Syrians obliterated by American bombs.<\/p>\n

By far the biggest mistake of our contrary president is to ignore the wisdom every global power has known from Rome to the British Empire: the importance of prestige, which a great power nurtures by consistently rewarding its friends and punishing its enemies. Both friends and enemies have to believe your promises and threats will be followed by meaningful action. But this president gets it backwards: just make empty threats and preen morally, and then rationalize a failure to act by invoking \u201cinternational law\u201d and \u201cU.N. mandates\u201d and other verbal squibs that fill those hard cruel men doing the killing with nothing but contempt. Respond to Assad\u2019s crossing the \u201cred line\u201d by promising assistance to the insurgents, but then never follow through with even the promise of near-useless small arms\u2013\u2013and then watch Assad murder 350 men, women, and children with sarin\u00a0nerve gas on the anniversary of Obama\u2019s \u201cchange my calculus\u201d bluster about chemical weapons. Decry terrorism and drone to death an endless parade of al Qaeda \u201cnumber twos,\u201d but then cozy up to the arch-jihadists Muslim Brothers, al Qaeda\u2019s spiritual godfathers, and beg the Egyptian army to \u201creconcile\u201d with terrorists. Tell the world\u00a0\u201cI think it was absolutely the right thing for us to do to align ourselves with democracy [and] universal rights,\u201d\u00a0and then make your best international friend Turkey\u2019s Islamist, anti-Semitic Prime Minister Erdogan, currently dismantling \u201cdemocracy and universal rights\u201d in Turkey. And don\u2019t forget to periodically browbeat Israel, our only reliable friend in the region.<\/p>\n

So our contrary president has managed to destroy our prestige, alienate our friends, embolden our enemies, increase contempt for our power, and leave behind a Middle East more violent, murderous, and hostile to our security and interests than it ever has been. Just what you would expect from someone who sees the world backwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine Remember the \u201ccontrary\u201d Sioux warrior from\u00a0Little Big Man? He did everything backwards\u2013\u2013said \u201chello\u201d for \u201cgoodbye,\u201d washed in sand instead of water. Our president is the foreign policy contrary. He has gotten backwards every maxim of proven wisdom for dealing with the rest of the world. Teddy Roosevelt counseled, \u201cSpeak […]<\/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":[22,116,536,196],"tags":[12,1055,1028,1041,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1F0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-stakes-in-tonights-foreign-policy-debate\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":0},"title":"The Stakes in Tonight’s Foreign Policy Debate","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce Thornton FrontPage Magazine Foreign policy, the topic of tonight\u2019s debate, was suddenly thrust into the voters\u2019 consciousness by the murder of 4 Americans, including our ambassador, in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9\/11. Intensifying the fallout of this event has been the Obama administration\u2019s incoherent, clumsy, duplicitous, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2545,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-libya-venture-and-double-standards\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Libya Venture and Double Standards","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The champion of shameless chutzpah has always been the guy who murders his parents then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he\u2019s an orphan. But White House spokesman Jay Carney might be the new champ, given his response to the House\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7014,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-foreign-policy-enemy-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":2},"title":"Obama’s Foreign Policy: Enemy Action","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine\u00a0 It\u2019s often hard to determine whether a series of bad policies results from stupidity or malicious intent. Occam\u2019s razor suggests that the former is the more likely explanation, as conspiracies assume a high degree of intelligence, complex organization, and secrecy among a large number\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2454,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/time-for-a-foreign-policy-paradigm-shift\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":3},"title":"Time for a Foreign Policy Paradigm Shift","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine The greatest danger in foreign policy is a reliance on worn out paradigms and unexamined assumptions. This received wisdom acts as a mental filter that ignores new developments and lets through only that information which fits the preordained narrative. For nearly forty years American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8351,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-foreign-policy-primer-for-obama-and-rand-paul\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":4},"title":"A Foreign Policy Primer for Obama\u2013\u2013and Rand Paul","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/ FrontPage Magazine The president who thinks there\u2019s such a thing as an \u201cAustrian\u201d language is advising Rand Paul to \u201cbone up on foreign policy.\u201d It\u2019s now official: the Obama administration has become a recurring skit on Saturday Night Live. This is the same Barack Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Our Contributors"","block_context":{"text":"Our Contributors","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo via FrontPage Magazine","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/rand-paul1-500x271.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6306,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/epitaph-for-a-foreign-policy\/","url_meta":{"origin":6386,"position":5},"title":"Epitaph for a Foreign Policy","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bruce S. Thornton \/\/\u00a0FrontPage Magazine If you still doubt that Barack Obama has disastrously bungled our foreign policy, check out this\u00a0video. In it Egyptian singer Salma Elmasry brutally insults Obama for supporting the Muslim Brothers and Islamists in general, her vulgar insults laced with an image of our President\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386"}],"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=6386"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6398,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6386\/revisions\/6398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}