It's the Foreign Policy, and We Are Stupid

During his late, lamented campaign, Mitt Romney opined:

It’s the economy, and we’re not stupid.

Well, maybe. But the economy is a lot of people, millions of them actually, from the assembly line worker to the CEO, and has a surprising way of righting itself despite a plethora of bad policies. Capitalism is a mighty motor; economies rebound when you least expect them to.

Not so with foreign policy. It’s in the hands of one man — the president.

Yes, Congress has the right to declare war, blah blah. History has shown us again and again who is really running the show on global matters. The president is dictating foreign policy usually before anybody outside his inner circle knows what is happening, and long before his adversaries can do much about it.

So while Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians are all revved-up about gun control, social issues, and even the economy, the real permanent damage is being done elsewhere.

Good-bye, Pax Americana. Hello to the era of Kerry, Hagel, and Brennan.

And when I say permanent damage, I mean it. You can always change gun laws (we have several times already). The social issues are largely determined by the culture, and as I noted above, the economy is only partially in the hands of the government.

What you can’t simply change is the nature of global forces, the power configuration of our planet. Since World War II, the world has survived and prospered to a remarkable degree under U.S. leadership. Nazism was defeated, followed by the downfall or reformation of equally murderous communist regimes.

Barack Obama’s deepest intention — emotionally and ideologically — is to change all that.

Forget objective reality. As Dinesh D’Souza demonstrated in his book and film, Obama’s psychological makeup — his heart — is influenced to a significant degree by a belief that America is a dangerous colonial power, that world leadership must be shared.

Yet “leading from behind” is a euphemism. There is no such leading.

Our near-certain next secretary of State, John Kerry, our only slightly less certain next secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, and our next CIA director, John Brennan, hold the same views as Obama, or are close enough to those views to be easily manipulated.

Besides the obvious expected policies, such as pushing Israel to make self-destructive concessions for a two-state solution the Palestinians have shown no evidence of wanting, this triumvirate will support Obama in undercutting numerous formerly bipartisan policies. Including, perhaps most significantly, the gutting of the defense budget.

They also will continue the administration’s bizarre Middle East policy that has resulted in the rise of Islamism everywhere from Mali to Egypt and beyond. And no matter the rhetoric we will most likely hear at confirmation hearings, Iran will get the message that serious American power is in actuality “off the table” when it comes to interdicting the mullahs’ march to nuclear weapons.

Outside of the usual Middle East hotspots, Russia and China are watching.

Obama already told Medvedev to wait until after the election for a more pliable Russia policy, particularly on missile defense. Well, it is after the election: the president is delivering tout de suite, notably in his nomination of Hagel, a selection made all the more repellent because of the nominee’s recorded bigotry toward Jews and gays.

I urge people on the right to fight this nomination with all their might. This president, who was able to lie so blatantly about the Benghazi terror attack — even in front of the United Nations — is now sticking it to us with almost palpable glee.

I repeat: foreign policy is the place where we must make our stand. Everything else pales by comparison.

ONE MORE THING (As an homage to the late S. Jobs, I have decided to add “One More Thing” to some of my posts): When it was announced that Obama nominated Chuck Hagel for Defense, I was not in the slightest surprised. Obama for some time has quietly had “sympathy for the mullahs”. We learned that several years ago when the democracy demonstrators in the streets of Tehran cried out “Obama, Obama, are you with us or are you with them?” and the president said nothing. It was the single most reprehensible foreign policy act (or non-act) by an American president in my lifetime. Liberals, of all people, should be ashamed. Chuck Schumer, are you listening?