Victor Davis Hanson:
The United States has ridden — and tamed — the wild global tiger since the end of World War II. The frantic ride has been dangerous, to us, but a boon to humanity. At the same time, America’s leadership role has been misrepresented and misunderstood abroad and at home, including by some of our country’s own leaders. Accordingly, our current president, Barack Obama, has decided to climb down from the tiger, with the certain consequence that it will run wild again.
The crowning achievement of postwar American policy was the defeat of Soviet communism. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, America then aimed at a “new world order.” There was to be no place, at least in theory, for renegade dictators like Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic. After 9/11, the U.S. declared a “war on terror” and led an international effort to stop Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and Islamist jihadists.
Despite the occasional mishaps, setbacks and errant strategies, U.S. leadership nonetheless ensured worldwide free commerce, travel and communications. When it could, America promoted free-market economies and democracy in authoritarian states
Our key allies — the United Kingdom and its former commonwealth, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Israel — were assured of our unwavering support and got rich. Neutrals and enemies alike assumed that it was as unwise to be on the wrong side of America as it was beneficial to be on friendly terms.
The Obama administration apparently has tired of the global order that American power created. The president seems determined that America should become unexceptional, and his five-year-long efforts are now bearing fruit. The result is that no one knows where global violence will break out next, much less who will stop it.
France, not the United States, pushes for a tougher front against radical Iran, Islamism and WMD proliferation. Its socialist government is to the right of the United States. Germany is the more adult fiscal power, Japan the more realistic about Chinese aggression, Israel and the Gulf states the more accurate in assessing Iranian nuclear ambitions, and Russia the more dependable problem-solver.
The superpower United States chose to be led in Libya by much weaker Britain and France. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad ignored serial American red lines. In response, Obama vowed to intervene before vowing not to — and finally outsourced influence to Vladimir Putin. That back step apparently fulfilled the president’s pre-election open-mic promise to Russia to be more flexible.
The prestige of the United Nations suffers terribly from the erratic nature of the supposedly pro-UN Obama administration. We exceeded the resolutions of the UN on Libya; we never even sought them in Syria; and we are now undermining them over Iran.
Obama forced our military to battle on an ”equalized” playing field with al Qaeda and the Taliban.
His ”rules of engagement,” lead directly to greater numbers on battlefield deaths and skyrocketed battlefield injuries.
But, public opinion to leave off riding that tiger of American exceptionalism never happened.
It was partly because of an unexpected consequence of Obama’s syncophantic media.
See, had it been Bush, those battlefield casualties would have been front page fodder for weeks leading up to ”tragic milestone,” of this or that number of deaths.
But Obama’s media stayed quiet as our death tolls have rocketed.
He cornered our own men by his ROEs.
Our 30 Navy SEALs and support fighters died because their enemy ran into a building, thus could not be fired on (civilians MIGHT be in there.)
A drone and two Apache helicopters stood by instead.
Had Obama’s media been keeping a running tally, Americans might be more isolationist (like Obama) than they are.