Even the Nazis believed that if they will ever get to build
the Third Reich of their dream, it will at best last only a thousand years. And
to hear the people who speak of America as if it were the infinite power that
will never be exhausted no matter how much they ask of it, is to hear the
voices of people who have no idea how history progresses, or perhaps do know
what is going on, but are intent on draining America in the effort to implement
their hidden agenda.
You can see how these people maneuver as they play on the
ego of an America
that is in need of a respite to catch its breath after a double marathon that
left it close to the breaking point. You can see the game they play by reading
the Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby article in the January 30, 2014 edition of
the Wall Street Journal. It comes under the title: “The Consequences of a
Halfway Presidency” and the subtitle: “Obama's vision of America as Sisyphus in the Middle
East reflects a policy with little hope of success.”
They begin the article with a deception in that they discuss
President Obama's State of the Union address through the prism of a
meticulously fabricated distortion. What they did is juxtapose the speech's
“year of action” theme – which is about domestic policy – with the little that
it contains in terms of foreign policy. And so, they made it sound like the
entire speech was about “the Syrian Geneva conference, Iranian nuclear
negotiations and Israeli-Palestinian talks” when, in fact, these were but
footnotes compared to what else came in the speech. And the authors then
proceeded to discuss those points at length without once mentioning the
domestic issues that the speech was all about.
Not only did they commit this intellectual dishonesty but,
because they found little or no material in the speech to help them discuss the
foreign issues that are dear to them, they linked the speech to an article in
the New Yorker magazine in which the President was quoted as invoking the story
of Sisyphus from Greek mythology to explain what America is experiencing with
regard to some aspects relating to foreign policy.
They made big hay about Obama citing Kennedy's willingness
to negotiate with enemies without him mentioning the “bear any burden” Cold War
call to arms that Kennedy made to indicate America 's willingness to protect
the Europeans. But what the writers did not realize is that, in doing so, they
pointed to the fact that America has been bearing the burden during all these
decades for nations that needed it but are so strong and healthy now, they
should bear their own burden because America and its people need a relief and
deserve to have it.
Moreover, America
was bearing the burden to guard against a Soviet Union
that was, but is no more. It is dead and buried in the dust bins of history.
And this means that Reagan's “flat out challenge,” summing up his strategy as:
“we win, they lose” has been fulfilled to the letter. And this reality alone
should force everyone to think in terms of the saying that goes: it makes no
sense to beat a dead horse – or maybe a dead bear in this case.
Being desperate to beat up on Obama, Fradkin and Libby quote
an adviser to Turkey 's
Prime Minister Erdogan who described the American President as being half a
leader. What seems to escape our two writers is that this means the adviser
considers Erdogan to be a complete leader. Well, before believing in something
like this, any sane person would have consulted with the people of Turkey who
protest against Erdogan's rule on a daily basis. That's not what our two
writers did because they were eager to make the assertion that they did – or
maybe they did what they did because they are insane.
They now return to the theme of Sisyphus to remind the
readers that Reagan negotiated with the Soviets after re-establishing American
strength whereas Obama seems to invoke an “image of American futility and lack
of vision.” What they do not say is that Reagan knew where to cut his losses
... as he did when he pulled out of Lebanon following the bombing of
the marine barracks there. And he knew how to make the best that can be done
when negotiating from a position of weakness ... as he did when he supplied the
Iranians with surface to air missiles. So far, Obama has not made the big blunders
that many of his predecessors made because he knows how to keep America out of
trouble. And history may well judge him as having been the “cool hand, steady
as she goes President.”
And from what Fradkin and Libby are saying, it seems that
President Obama has deliberately chosen to pursue that policy because – in his
wisdom – he sees it as being suitable for the times. Look at this passage: “In
the New Yorker article, presidential aide is quoted warning that man may alter
history but cannot have confidence improving it.” And they quote the aide as
saying this: “There are currents in history and you have to figure out how to
move them in one direction or another [but] you can't necessarily determine the
final outcome.”
Do you know what this means, my friend? It means that Obama
realizes he can intervene in any and every event if he wants to, and he will
certainly stir things up, but he cannot tell what the consequences of his
actions will be because some of them will be unintended; and they will be random.
Just imagine if Kennedy had known what getting into Vietnam
will bring to America .
Would he have gone there? Also imagine if Nixon had known what protecting his
Watergate underlings will bring to his presidency and to the nation. Would he
have protected them? These were unintended consequences, and neither President
could do something to alter their course once the ball got rolling.
When someone is endowed with Obama's kind of instinct and
quiet wisdom, you be careful before you try to second guess him. If you are
half as wise as he is, you keep quiet as long as he does not drag the nation
into a Bay of Pigs or a Vietnam
sort of near-abyss. And you let history judge him in hindsight for the manner
that he led the nation. It may not be spectacular but it is right for the time.
In fact, America
can no longer retain all the power because other nations have risen, and are
demanding their share of it. The problem is that they do not want the
responsibility that comes with power, being happy to let America bear
“every” burden alone. They are also happy to see America win because when it does,
the enemy loses, and they win having lifted not one finger.
Like they say, there is one born every minute, and those who
wish to live at America 's
expense, want to see it become the eternal sucker for the world to feed on –
which will make it easy for them to feed on it as well.