Look at the following passage and marvel at the mentality of
the one that wrote it: “Obama's trip to Europe
for D-Day's 70th anniversary provided yet another manifestation of his failed
leadership … Reagan's D-Day speech will long be remembered, Obama's quickly
forgotten.” This is what you encounter in John Bolton's article that came under
the title: “Obama in Europe – Leadership
matters but its absence matters more,” published in the Pittsburgh Tribune on
June 7, 2014.
Yes, Bolton also says there
is more to leadership than giving a memorable speech, and he tells how Reagan
“came as the free world's unquestioned leader, locked in mortal struggle
against global Communism.” Well, when he says mortal, it means that someone or
something must die at the end. In fact, it was Communism that died. Thus, in
the same way that it makes no sense beating a dead horse, it makes no sense
struggling against the dead corpse of Communism. And this is why Obama is not
struggling. As to the fact that Reagan was the unquestioned leader of the free
world, is there a question that Obama occupies the number one position in the
free world? If yes, who might that be?
Believe it or not, Bolton
does answer that question. But in doing so, he shifts gears and detaches the
rest of his argument from what he has been saying till now. Instead of
continuing to compare Obama with others, he describes the state of the Western
condition by giving a number of examples. This done, he sums it all up as
follows: “In short, the West is going through a period of upheaval and
uncertainty, not because of the strength of an external menace, but because of
weaknesses in its own leaders and institutions … The larger peril will arise if
the United States and its allies do not act resolutely before existential
threats materialize.” Hey, look at that; he says there are no existential
threats. The man must have been cured of his schizo-paranoid condition.
He also says that this situation is “somewhat comforting
because the capacity to fix these problems lies in our own hand, at least for
now.” He does not spell out in full detail what these problems are but having
said they are not external, he lets the reader understand they are internal. In
fact, a little later on in the article, he writes this: “Europe 's
other significant institution, the European Union, also is experiencing
considerable stress and turmoil. Its currency, the euro, barely survived the
financial crisis.”
That's it then; according to the now rehabilitated John
Bolton, the West has internal problems that must be addressed before expending
the little resources it has left to fix the problems of the world. And Barack
Obama, being the leader of the Western alliance known as the free world must be
doing the right thing when he devotes more of America 's
resources to fix America 's
internal problems.
It follows that if it is true “Putin recouped much of the
influence Russia lost” and if it is true “NATO is vulnerable to a Russian
strategy of military, political and economic assertiveness,” this is due to the
fact that the old Soviet Union recognized its own weaknesses when challenged by
the West, retrenched to catch its breath and when ready, roared again. It did
so because it perceived reality as it was and not as it wished it was.
Likewise, unless the West now perceives reality as it is, and not as it wishes
it were, the resulting misperceptions will not help it recover from its current
situation, and the consequences can be serious.
This is where Bolton has
gone wrong despite his being cured of schizo-paranoia. Look what he goes on to
say: “In many respects, Obama's failures and the EU's continuing crisis reflect
common misperceptions shared both by Obama's vision of American foreign policy
and by the EU worldview … the ideological underpinnings of Europe's social
democrats and Obama's own leftist inclinations are essentially the same.” It
seems that what continues to afflict Bolton is
a fanatic adherence to an ideological stance that leaves no room for
compromise.