Among other things, conveniently leaving out the Pope’s role in winning the Cold War, and Reagan’s and Thatcher’s courage in dealing with critics like a young Barack Obama, then an ally of the Soviet-inspired and funded nuclear freeze movement.
In a sternly worded column in The Times of London, the two leaders liken the effort to free Arab people from authoritarianism to the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1980s.
They liken their personal efforts to two leaders who came before them: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
“We will stand with those who want to bring light into dark, support those who seek freedom in place of repression, aid those laying the building blocks of democracy,” they wrote.
“We will not stand by as their aspirations get crushed in a hail of bombs, bullets and mortar fire. We are reluctant to use force, but when our interests and values come together, we know that we have a responsibility to act.”
That sounds good, except that in the cases of Syria and Iran, both are standing by as tyrants crush those aspiring for freedom in a hail of bombs, bullets and mortar fire. I’m not calling for a Western intervention in Syria or Iran, just pointing out that it’s not a good idea to print lines that are so easily proven false, hollow, self-aggrandizing and unserious.
As for the Arab Spring, it =/= the Cold War. It just doesn’t. It may turn out well, it may turn out like Iran’s 1979 revolution or most likely a mix of some good and some bad, but however it all turns out, it is not the Cold War.
And Barack Obama, when Ronald Reagan was actually president, hated Ronald Reagan and stood with the far left Greens who rejected the “peace through strength” that helped win the Cold War. He was on the wrong side of history then, so it’s risible for Obama to claim Reagan’s mantle now.
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