{"id":6431,"date":"2013-09-10T09:45:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6431"},"modified":"2013-09-10T09:45:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:45:34","slug":"a-fundamental-absence-of-seriousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-fundamental-absence-of-seriousness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fundamental Absence of Seriousness"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We are told hypocrisies are Obama\u2019s problem: Republicans who are usually pro-war don\u2019t support this war only because of Obama; Democrats who are usually anti-war can\u2019t support this war for Obama without being shown up as sudden pro-war hypocrites.<\/p>\n

Some of that may be true, but the real reason is in the Oval Office, and it concerns a lack of purpose and commitment that has scared off 70 percent of the American people.<\/p>\n

The problem Obama and his team have in convincing voters and the Congress to support his preemptory bombing of Syria is that few believe this administration is really serious about its foreign policy \u2014 and they do not see the sloppy idea of killing a few hundred or thousand people and destroying some stuff in Syria as essential to restoring American credibility in the Middle East, boxing in Iran, and creating a Third Way in Syria.<\/p>\n

Instead, Syria over the last year has sort of been like the employer mandate, one moment absolutely essential to the survival of the country, the next a bit problematic, and so, well, let\u2019s just forget about it for the time being.<\/p>\n

If Obama does not bomb Syria next week, in two weeks we will hear the usual recriminations between golf outings \u2014 the same old, same old blame Congress, Bush, etc. Then, in three weeks, he will be back to the next empty pontification and make-no-mistake-about-it sermon, and he will have a new war to wage on the home front against all sorts of dastardly domestic opponents before resetting abroad. Sometimes the administration\u2019s unserious attitude is apparent\u00a0in the trivial (e.g., Obama and Reggie Love playing serial hands of cards during the bin Laden raid, Obama vanishing during the long night of the Benghazi disaster, David Axelrod sneering of the Syria vote that the congressional dog is hitting the car).<\/p>\n

But more often there is a far more dangerous confusion.The public has been so flipped and flopped over Syria that it has lost any faith it might have had in the endeavor \u2014 given all the redlines and game changers that became pink lines and game non-changers and imminent cruise-missile launchings and sudden back-offs. The \u201cshot across the bow\u201d became the big shot against the big ship. Going it alone but consulting Congress (and maybe going it alone). Time is of the essence, but also not of the essence. Allies are on board, but only sorta, kinda, maybe later on board. Syria costs money, but may the sheiks could pay for it. The UN is\u00a0hocus pocus<\/em>, but now maybe worth a go. The Brits always stand with us, but apparently not this time around. Assad was a reformer, maybe a moderate, and snubbed unfairly during the Bush administration, but now he\u2019s so diabolical that only Hitlerian similes suffice. The chairman of the joint chiefs reminds us of the strategic issues at stake, but also that Syria is a ten-year mess, far more difficult than Libya, and a civil war where there are all sorts of sides that we know nothing about.<\/p>\n

About the only narrative Obama and his team can agree on is that \u201cIraq\u201d soured the American people and so kind of blew Obama\u2019s chances for a second attack after the Libyan mess.<\/p>\n

Instead, could Obama\u2019s Vulcans \u2014 Kerry, Hagel, Dempsey, Rice, and Brennan \u2014 give a brief joint press conference, in which they masterfully handled sharp questions and in sober and reserved tones mapped out the general outlines of the impending attack, confident in their ability to answer legitimate challenges?<\/p>\n

If we really do want to go to war, can\u2019t they speak to us without the usual share of Obama\u2019s braggadocio and redlines \u2014 and Kerry\u2019s pontificating, Hagel\u2019s muteness, Dempsey\u2019s equivocation, and Rice\u2019s politicking \u2014 and just supply a tiny bit of non-partisan analysis and logic?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that has or will happen. Instead, the war is sold on \u201ctrust us\u201d when trust and transparency are rarely evident in this administration\u2019s foreign policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner   We are told hypocrisies are Obama\u2019s problem: Republicans who are usually pro-war don\u2019t support this war only because of Obama; Democrats who are usually anti-war can\u2019t support this war for Obama without being shown up as sudden pro-war hypocrites.<\/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":[536,576],"tags":[12,88,1041],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1FJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6442,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syrian-knowns-and-unknowns\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":0},"title":"Syrian Knowns and Unknowns","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media \u00a0 1)\u00a0Red lines:\u00a0Does anyone believe we would be on the eve of a war with Syria had not Barack Obama on two occasions \u2014 echoed on two others by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton \u2014\u00a0warned Bashar Assad of red lines\u00a0surrounding the use of WMD?\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/syria-war_protestor_9-8-13-2-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6437,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-farce\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":1},"title":"Obama’s Farce","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"He sold his plan for bombing Syria on flawed political assumptions. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online \u00a0 To support the president\u2019s enforcement of his red line in Syria requires suspensions of disbelief. Here are several. I wish it were not true, but there is scant evidence that the\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/5516984495_a7e9026136-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6411,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-indicts-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":2},"title":"Obama Indicts Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media One of the problems that Barack Obama has in mounting an attack against the Assad regime is that the gambit violates every argument Barack Obama used against the Bush administration to establish his own anti-war candidacy. The hypocrisy is so stunning that it infuriates\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6491,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-box-canyon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":3},"title":"Obama’s Box Canyon","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Our Hamlet-in-cheif wanted simultaneously to act and not act. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0National Review Online The Syrian fiasco arose from two mutually contradictory desires. Barack Obama sincerely wanted Bashar Assad to stop killing his own people. Barack Obama also really was not willing to use force to ensure that\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":5931,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-for-change-in-syria\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":4},"title":"Hope for Change in Syria","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Once again, Obama has proven more of an idealist than an implementer. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Remember when President Obama used to warn Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad to stop his mass killing and step down? Moammar Qaddafi\u2019s dictatorship had just collapsed under Western bombing. The murders of Americans\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":6539,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/goodbye-syria-on-to-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":6431,"position":5},"title":"Goodbye Syria, On to Iran!","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 23, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0PJ Media\u00a0 To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, this is the way Syria ends: Not with a bang, but a whimper. We are back where we started \u2014 lots of people dying \u2014 as the crisis recedes with a high five and a sigh, rather than with America\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431"}],"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=6431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6432,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6431\/revisions\/6432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}