{"id":8188,"date":"2015-02-05T07:02:18","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T15:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8188"},"modified":"2015-02-05T07:05:01","modified_gmt":"2015-02-05T15:05:01","slug":"the-roots-of-obamas-appeasement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-roots-of-obamas-appeasement\/","title":{"rendered":"The Roots of Obama’s Appeasement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s disastrous foreign policy is as much a product of his own vanity as anything else.<\/em><\/h3>\n

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo via NRO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

M<\/span>embers of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. Jihad is a \u201clegitimate tenet of Islam.\u201d And \u201cviolent extremism,\u201d \u201cworkplace violence,\u201d or \u201cman-caused disaster\u201d better describe radical Islamic terrorism. Domestic terrorism is just as likely caused by returning U.S. combat veterans, according to one report by a federal agency.<\/p>\n

What is the point of such linguistic appeasement?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The word \u201cappeasement\u201d long ago became pejorative for giving in to bullies. One side was aggressive and undemocratic; the other consensual and eager to avoid trouble through supposedly reasonable concessions.<\/p>\n

But appeasement usually weakened the democratic side and empowered the extremist one.<\/p>\n

The architect of appeasement \u2014 for example, Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister of Great Britain \u2014 was predictably a narcissist. Chamberlain believed that his own powers of oratory, his insights into reason, and his undeniably superior morality would sway even a thug like Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n

President Obama currently is convinced that his singular charisma and rare insight into human nature will convince the Taliban to peacefully participate in Afghan politics. Obama will supposedly also win over the Iranian theocracy and show it how nonproliferation is really to everyone\u2019s advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cReset\u201d diplomacy with Putin was supposed to lessen tensions \u2014 if, after the 2012 election, Putin just had more exposure to a flexible statesman of Obama\u2019s wisdom.<\/p>\n

Throughout history, without the vanity of the conceder, there would never have been appeasement.<\/p>\n

Appeasement also always subordinates the interests of vulnerable third parties to the appeaser\u2019s own inflated sense of self. When Chamberlain and the French prime minister Edouard Daladier signed the 1938 Munich Pact, they worried little about the fate of millions of Czechs who lost their country \u2014 and less about millions of Poles who were next in line for Hitler\u2019s Blitzkrieg.<\/p>\n

Reset diplomacy with Russia in 2009 was not much concerned about the ensuing danger to Crimeans or Ukrainians. When the Taliban takes over, hundreds of thousands of reformist Afghans will die.<\/p>\n

Obama sees a deal with Iran as a way to cement his legacy as a breakthrough statesman. In comparison, the long-term consequences of a nuclear Iran on the security of tiny Israel or on the stability of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East are future and more abstract concerns for others.<\/p>\n

Even major concessions never satisfy aggressive powers. It is a traditional Western liberal delusion \u2014 brought on by our wealth, leisure, and the good life \u2014 that autocrats appreciate magnanimity rather than see it as timidity to be exploited further.<\/p>\n

Hitler fumed that the compliant Chamberlain at Munich was a \u201cworm\u201d for making such concessions to him and boasted that he would stomp on that \u201csilly old man\u201d on the next occasion he saw him.<\/p>\n

Releasing Guantanamo prisoners, or ignoring red lines to Syria, deadlines to Iran, and step-over lines to Russia, did not win over aggressors. Gestures of appeasement and empty threats only emboldened terrorists and green-lighted dictators to ratchet up nuclear enrichment, or violence against their own people \u2014 or to go into Ukraine.<\/p>\n

When a top Russian general brags that its nuclear force is now more powerful than America\u2019s, or when Ra\u00fal Castro warns that Cuba now expects an early return of the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay as the price of normalization, past American concessions seem to have whetted their appetites for more confrontations.<\/p>\n

The euphemisms for radical Islamic terrorism have not curbed it. They have not improved U.S. popularity in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The appeasing party is not always the weaker one. In 1938, Combined British and French military power was greater than that of the Third Reich. President Jimmy Carter had far more military options than did the Ayatollah Khomeini\u2019s Iran during the 1979\u201380 hostage crisis.<\/p>\n

Instead, stronger democratic nations feel that they can continue to enjoy short-term calm and peace of mind \u2014 and let others worry about any long-term likelihood of aggression. Maybe by treating jihad, terrorism, and radical Islam as taboo words, radical Muslim terrorists will respond and become less threatening.<\/p>\n

In truth, appeasement, not deterrence, is the more reckless path. With serial concessions, democratic leaders convince aggressors that they must be stronger than they actually are. Those fantasies increase the likelihood that weaker dictators and terrorists will miscalculate and set off a deadly confrontation down the road.<\/p>\n

Yet the public often prefers appeasement. Military preparedness and investment are too costly. Backing up threats seems too scary. Churchills and Reagans sound shrill. Alliances, deterrence, and balance of power sound so old-fashioned. Evil and good are derided as too simplistic. Defusing a crisis now is preferable to ensuring one down the road.<\/p>\n

Appeasement continues not because it works, but because it serves the pretensions of narcissists.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015\u00a0Tribune Media Services, Inc.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president\u2019s disastrous foreign policy is as much a product of his own vanity as anything else. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Members of the Obama administration have insisted that the Taliban are not terrorists. Those responsible for the recent Paris killings are not radical Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood is largely secular. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[28,140,59,46,230],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-284","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9396,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-dream-of-muslim-outreach-has-become-a-nightmare\/","url_meta":{"origin":8188,"position":0},"title":"The Dream of Muslim Outreach Has Become a Nightmare","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Affirming Muslim grievances has only increased the Arab world\u2019s sense that Obama is weak. \u00a0 By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online When President Obama entered office, he dreamed that his hope-and-change messaging and his references to his familial Islamic roots would win over the Muslim world. 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