HANSON ON THE FADING OBAMA – AT 7:10 P.M. ET:  It's widely remarked that never have we had a president who's fallen from grace faster than Barack Obama.  The impact of the crash-and-burn is now being widely felt in our foreign policy. 

Not only does this president no longer walk on the water connecting the world's continents, he's barely swimming.  Victor Davis Hanson, a historian of this kind of rise and fall pattern, examines the mess:

What’s gone wrong with Obama’s dream of multilateral cooperation?

For starters, the world’s tensions were not caused by, and remain far larger than, George W. Bush — and thus cannot be easily solved by his absence.

Obama also has apparently confused what people say with what nations do.

Yeah, noticed that.

...unfortunately, national leaders themselves do not behave like excited concertgoers or European intellectuals. Instead, they have only long-term self-interests — not temporary emotional crushes — and so seek to expand their influence whenever they can.

Obama had better understand that difference. A world without strong U.S. leadership really would become a far more dangerous place where the strong do as they please and the weak obey as they must.

Seems to me we're already getting there, thanks to The One, the Most Holy.

Hanson points out that, after World War II, the United States intervened to stabilize critical parts of the world, to prevent the kind of chaos that marked the 20th century.  Inevitably, that intervention brought some resentment, much of it tinged with jealousy.

And if allies sometimes derided America, privately they were mostly relieved that there was some sort of policeman — and that it was us and not an authoritarian nation like China, Iran, or Russia.

The tragedy is that, in many of our universities, students are taught that we are no better than China, Iran, or Russia.  They are taught by "scholars" who never lived under those regimes.

Obama may for practical and idealistic reasons believe that America should not or can no longer afford to play that pre-eminent role; he may even believe that such prominence was never really needed and was mostly counterproductive...

...But he should at least admit that in such a vacuum of American power and influence, the natural order of things abroad would be chaos. 

I want to hear the admission.  In fact, I want to see it in writing.

...broadcasting supposed past American sins; issuing meaningless deadlines to Iran; and snubbing allies such as Britain, Israel, Poland, and the Czech Republic won’t win over enemies or ease world tensions.

Amazing how past presidents understood that.  Well, maybe Jimmah didn't, but most did.

Right now the world’s bad actors confidently see “hope” for a vast “change” in the old world order — but not the kind Obama once so boldly promised.

COMMENT:  Is there any evidence that Obama has learned from the mess that his first year left all over the globe?  Not so far.  But there are 11 months left.  Jack Kennedy took office in January of 1961, flopped in his first year, then confronted the Soviet Union in October of 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis.  We came off pretty well, but that was 90 miles off our shore.  Enemies won't make it that convenient next time.  Iran means longer flight time than even Nancy Pelosi can tolerate.

The real tests are coming up.  Confidence in the president is not high.

February 4, 2010