Victor Davis Hanson: An "Impulsive" America? Too much dialogue and not enough leadership

NRO ^ | February 19, 2009 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Tolik]

President Barack Obama’s first TV interview was with the Dubai-based, partly Saudi-funded Al Arabiya satellite channel. In passing, he faulted past American policy for too readily “dictating” in the Middle East. He had better things to say about Saudi King Abdullah’s “courage” in trying to solve the Middle East crisis.

Vice President Joe Biden likewise has promised the world a sharp break from the prior Bush administration that, from his references, was apparently to blame for bouts of anti-Americanism abroad. He assured the Europeans at the Munich Security Conference that it was time to press the reset button in foreign policy, and pledged a new chapter in America’s overseas relations.

On her initial tour abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton re-emphasized the Obama and Biden message, announcing that she would follow an approach that “values what others have to say.” And then Clinton elaborated on this now well-worn “blame Bush” theme: “Too often in the recent past, our government has acted reflexively before considering available facts and evidence or hearing the perspectives of others.” America, Clinton promised, from now on would be “neither impulsive nor ideological.”

Contrast such admirable talk with recent events:

North Korea has just announced that it plans to launch a new Taepodong-2 missile capable of reaching the United States.

China, which holds hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. Treasury bonds and will be asked to loan us billions more, advised the Obama administration to drop the “buy American” talk in the new Democratic stimulus program.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently bragged that his country would soon go nuclear, and that President Obama’s offer to talk without preconditions revealed a new passivity in the West.

Russia just announced that it had developed a new strategic relationship with Iran, and warned that American-sponsored missile defense for Eastern Europe was unpalatable.

About the same time, the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, on Russian advice, disclosed that it may no longer allow Americans to use a base in their country to supply the war effort in Afghanistan.

Pakistan just released from house arrest A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, who had sold nuclear technologies to the likes of Libya and North Korea.

This rather provocative behavior reminds us that President Obama’s laudable assurances of a new age of American diplomacy may often be ignored — or exploited — rather than always appreciated. North Korea, for example, may agree with Hillary Clinton’s criticism of the U.S. the last eight years — and thereby announce to her that it feels less obligated to keep promises once made to an “impulsive” United States.

European governments in France, Germany, Italy, and most of Eastern Europe have long been pro-American. India is friendly; so is most of Asia. Africa has received billions of dollars in recent American help to combat AIDS.

These friends of ours, despite their serial complaining about the U.S., may privately be worrying that a kinder, more eloquent antithesis to George W. Bush will lead to too much dialogue and not enough leadership. After all, the agendas of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong Il, Vladimir Putin, the heads of Hamas and Hezbollah, and other roguish leaders transcend the Bush presidency.

We have already learned from Barack Obama’s adjustments from his original positions on the Patriot Act, the FISA accords, the surge, and overseas rendition that often the past administration faced only bad choices — which were easier to criticize as a candidate than to reject outright as president.

Now, by so loudly broadcasting a near-divine morality, rather than just quietly putting its own imprint on U.S. foreign policy, the Obama administration only sets itself up for the charge of hypocrisy.

True, it is wise to drop the unnecessary smoke-’em-out, dead-or-alive lingo that sometimes characterized the Bush administration. But it would be foolish to reject many of its successful initiatives simply because they were poorly articulated or sometimes couched in unfortunate tough-guy rhetoric.

The last president to promise such a grandiose break from the American past was Jimmy Carter. As he entered office in the post-Watergate, post-Vietnam age, he lectured the world about human rights. Carter promised an end to America’s inordinate fears of communism, and vowed to show more kindness abroad — and as recompense earned in a mere three years the Soviets in Afghanistan, communist insurgencies in Central America, and American hostages in Tehran.

Given the depressing nature of the world abroad, the more we now keep promising to be gentle, the bigger the stick we will later on have to carry.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a recipient of the 2007 National Humanities Medal.

[Tolik]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTNhNGM0ZjY1ZTFhNzQwNmJhYjRkMzYwYzg0MzMxZGQ=

Why Honor Promises to an "Impulsive" United States?   [Victor Davis Hanson]

Secretary Clinton just reminded North Korea to live up to past promises and accords. But why should they, when for the last week the world has been reminded how the past administration caused much of the problems we face today? If Secretary Clinton loudly announces that the U.S. has been too "impulsive" and "ideological", perhaps North Korea agrees with her — and now has no reason to abide by any past accords enacted in such a pernicious climate.

02/16 11:16 AM

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http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzFlMzAyY2E3MDExN2ZhNWJhMWFlYjdiNTk0ZTAwODY=

The Coming Storm   [Victor Davis Hanson]

First, President Obama in his al-Arabiya interview castigated past American foreign policy, suggested the onus of poor Islamic-Western relations was on the United States, and promised a new foreign policy of dialogue and listening. Then Joe Biden went to Munich and blathered on about hitting the reset button of foreign-policy, using more of the platitudes of “Bush did it” that we’ve come to associate with the first months of the Obama administration. Secretary of State Clinton completed the trifecta on her first tour when she cleared her throat with the now customary “too often in the recent past . . . (fill in the blanks with being too ideological, unilateral, insensitive, etc.).”

So the world can now expect a break with the awful past, and the start of some brilliant new multilateral approach? Instead, I think, it will quickly assume that the healer Barack Obama, as the new messiah, will vote “Present!” on many of the crises to come, and would no more wish to play the role of global enforcer than he would have impolitely walked out of one of Rev. Wright’s hate-filled sermons.

Will Obama and company, through inspired diplomacy, solve any lingering tension from the Bush administration over missile defense in Europe, the soon-to-be Iranian bomb and missiles, or the European so-so role in Afghanistan? Will they find a novel, kinder, and gentler way to thwart possible al-Qaeda Mumbai-copycat killers here at home, to defang North Korea, to talk sense to the Russians to stay in their confining borders, and to persuade Hamas to act more like Fatah?

I seriously doubt it. Instead, this serial apologizing, promising a new age of listening and togetherness, and trashing the Bush administration will have two consequences: Enemies will begin to think there is a tad less likelihood now that the U.S. will respond forcefully to a terrorist attack (since “Bush did it” in the past) without first consulting allies, trying to find a diplomatic solution, or going to the U.N.; and, second, friends will slacken a bit, knowing that our prime interest is in the means of multilateralism rather than any objective ends: one now “dialogues” over troops in Afghanistan, and “discusses” whether to follow through on missile defense, and “listens” to “all the parties” like Syria and Iran for “constructive” suggestions about Middle East peace. In short, a bad idea to trash the past when much of it was good, and point happily to the future when it may well be far worse.

We are setting ourselves up for a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s “Our kindness and intellect will save the world,” but this second time as farce.

02/16 10:49 AM

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out.

Links:    FR Index of his articles:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
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                NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
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[WayneS]

That’s okay.

The Obamessiah will TALK to all these trouble-makers and they will see the error of their ways. The Hope and Change and Goodness that simply radiate off the man (if he IS “just” a man) will permeate their conciousnesses and they will see that the only good and true “way” is to follow and obey the Obamessiah.

Now, please excuse me.... I must go be sick...

[txnativegop]

That was, well, REFRESHING!!!! A reporter who gets it! (someone catch me I feel faint . . .)

[Le Chien Rouge]

Victor Davis Hanson: An “Impulsive” America? Too much dialogue and not enough leadership...........

The lawyers are in charge........their minds are programmed for dialogue and not management.....

We need leaders now more than ever.....

[this_ol_patriot]

Strong America everybody behaves, weak America nobody behaves but the shit is going to hit their fans long before it hits ours.

[Tarpon]

What he said — Jive talking motor mouths are running the country

[Tolik]

That’s a problem: Dr. Hanson is not a reporter. He is a historian, classicist.

If you are new to Hanson, please see links to archives in my ping post (post#3). Thanks.

[Tolik]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjExNjU1ZTU2YmI5MzIzZjEwNDIwMTg1ZDdhNGYyNmQ=

Suspension of Disbelief Redux   [Victor Davis Hanson]

On her initial tour abroad, Sec. Clinton announced that she would follow an approach that "values what others have to say": "Too often in the recent past, our government has acted reflexively before considering available facts and evidence or hearing the perspectives of others." And then she promised a policy "neither impulsive nor ideological."

At some point the unifying, bipartisan Obama team should cease all this ad nauseam "Bush did it" since this perpetual campaign mode, when taken abroad, is not healthy for the country in all too many ways:

1) it assures enemies that their past problems with the U.S. were largely of our own making due to our impulsiveness or ideology, not the fault of their own, or intrinsic differences;

2) it assures allies that there are not so much honest differences in our relationship as much as agreement that Bush et al were toxic (as if Germany otherwise would have fought well in Afghanistan, and now of course will);

3) it has a short shelf life: we are into the second month of the Obama administration and have seen really nothing new abroad other than the "we're not Bush";

4) it only sets up more of the same hypocrisy of what we have seen—hubris leading to nemesis—as inevitably in the bad/worse choices to come, Ms. Clinton will find herself often simply continuing existing (Bush) policy, and so like Obama on rendition, FISA the Patriot Act, Iraq, etc. adopt what she trashed;

5) very quickly Team Obama is using up their good will, as the American people are now quite aware of the tired modus operandi—talk of unity, togetherness, bipartisanship, and then trash your predecessor to lower expectations and magnify your own agenda.

Time to get a life...

02/14 09:13 AM

 

 

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

the more we now keep promising to be gentle, the bigger the stick we will later on have to carry

Full employment, dead ahead! War, conscription, nuclear attack, famine will take care of the excess population. Dems can't abort and euthanize people fast enough without war.

[txnativegop]

I stand corrected! EEEEWWWW! Did I ever insult Mr. Hanson

[zbogwan2]

And then Clinton elaborated on this now well-worn “blame Bush” theme: “Too often in the recent past, our government has acted reflexively before considering available facts and evidence or hearing the perspectives of others.”

I wonder if she would be believing this if she were one of the blindfolded captives of AlQuida about to be beheaded?

When I look at the whole Democratic Leadership, from the Pres. down, they look just stupid

[yobid]

What he said — Jive talking motor mouths are running the country

Fo Shizzle!

[maica]

VDH and Thomas Sowell are the two best professors today for outlining exactly what is happening in our country. Add Mark Steyn to the list of must reads and one can be called well-informed.

[Tolik]

Plus Prof. Walter Williams.

Charles Krauthammer, Theodore Dalrymple

The best citizen-essayist: Bill Whittle

Best independent journalists sticking their noses into hot zones: Michael Totten and Michael Yon

Political essays by a professional writer: Orson Scott Card

[txnativegop]

I am familiar with Sowell an Steyn. Hanson I didn’t really know about.

Thanks for the information!

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[GOPJ]

Pakistan just released from house arrest A. Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, who had sold nuclear technologies to the likes of Libya and North Korea.

And probably Osama and goons...

[maica]

Tony Blankley writes Truth to DC Power also.
I try to catch his column every week.