{"id":6440,"date":"2013-09-10T10:34:50","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T17:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6440"},"modified":"2013-09-10T10:34:50","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T17:34:50","slug":"a-bare-chested-machiavelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-bare-chested-machiavelli\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bare-Chested Machiavelli"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

 <\/p>\n

It is unfortunate that Vladimir Putin could not use his formidable diplomatic skills at home to address his own near failing state rather than showcasing them abroad at our expense. Oh, well . . .<\/p>\n

Without much effort, his Alice-in-Wonderland proposal of collecting WMD from Assad,\u00a0in the midst of a civil war no less (does this mean a mandatory 24-hour time-out so that U.N. inspectors can rush in with clipboards and audit the ten warring sides?), all at once seems to have kept his Mediterranean coastal client Bashar Assad not just alive, but with the upper hand in the war just by \u2014 in theory, though unlikely in fact \u2014 eliminating 1 percent of the combined killing capacity so far demonstrated in the fighting.<\/p>\n

Putin, the leveler of Grozny, and absolutely callous to the first 99,000 killed in Syria, has advertised to the world his humanitarian empathy in preventing an American-led, new escalation of the war, supposedly to be waged over the last 1,000 dead.<\/p>\n

He has reminded the \u201cinternational community\u201d and U.S. allies why they were absolutely baffled over the administration\u2019s hazy aims, contradictory means, and uncertain desired ends, and in effect also reminded them why they were wise not to sign on to such a directionless and capricious agenda.<\/p>\n

He has made a floundering Barack Obama grasp onto a supposed life line, reduced the rhetorician John Kerry to a caricature of John Kerry, and now has almost controlled the entire pulse of the ill-thought-out and poorly planned U.S. preemption \u2014 which is being reduced to something like \u201cat least we inspired Putin\u2019s ridiculous idea in the first place and only our threats produced such an unhinged Russian response.\u201d How strange that Putin is supposedly enhancing the Obama administration\u2019s weird notion that it is not who controls and uses WMD that matters, but the mere existence of WMD itself that almost spontaneously kills people.<\/p>\n

This charade will last as long as Obama is intent on bombing to recover his own lost credibility over his unfortunate red lines, and as long as Putin can keeping producing a new phantasm as quickly as the prior one disappears. No doubt his well-timed efforts have altered the contents of tonight\u2019s presidential address, and later this week he will do something again to alter the alterations of the presidential address.<\/p>\n

One would have thought Putin wielded the huge military, enjoyed the cachet of being a Nobel laureate, was surrounded by just-war theorists, and led the world\u2019s largest democracy and economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner   It is unfortunate that Vladimir Putin could not use his formidable diplomatic skills at home to address his own near failing state rather than showcasing them abroad at our expense. Oh, well . . .<\/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":[127],"tags":[1037,424,76],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1FS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6491,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-box-canyon\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":0},"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":6525,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/syria-postmortem\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":1},"title":"Syria Postmortem","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner\u00a0 I think the so-called Syrian crisis is working out as most anticipated: 1) In about a year or so Assad and Putin will announce that they \u201cthink\u201d they might have in theory rounded up a lot of the WMD, and will soon make\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":6584,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/game-changers\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":2},"title":"‘Game Changers’","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0Tribune Media Services\u00a0 When -- not if -- is the only mystery about an Iranian nuclear bomb. All the warning signs are there. 'Game changers' In 2008, presidential candidate\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0on two occasions went out of his way to warn the Iranians that the development of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6489,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-charade-can-go-on-and-on-and-on\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":3},"title":"The Charade Can Go On — and On and On . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner So far in the Syrian charade, Bashar Assad has won de facto permission to be a legitimate ruler negotiating with superpowers, while promising to kill thousands more by blowing them up, shelling them, and shooting them without \u201cobscene\u201d chemical weapons. Vladimir Putin controls\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9384701499_3a835e687b-300x200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6539,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/goodbye-syria-on-to-iran\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":4},"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":[]},{"id":6470,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/putin-saruman-come-alive\/","url_meta":{"origin":6440,"position":5},"title":"Putin — Saruman Come Alive","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner \u201cIt was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves.\u201d \u2014 J. R. R. Tolkien,\u00a0The Two Towers. If it were regrettable that Vladimir Putin\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Relations"","block_context":{"text":"International Relations","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/international-relations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/6332095728_eecccbf53a-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440"}],"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=6440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6441,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440\/revisions\/6441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}