John Hannah, late of Dick Cheney’s office, thinks that Barack Obama is a wuss:
[In the Middle East] concerns run deep over the administration’s lack of strategic vision, its instinct for retreat and its complicity in the unraveling of a benevolent imperium that has for decades underwritten the region’s security.
….No good can come from the perception of the United States in retreat, a willing accomplice in the dismantling of a regional order — Pax Americana — that has been the linchpin of Mideast security for decades. It’s a dangerously corrosive narrative, one that left unchecked will breed uncertainty, instability and even war. Disabusing friend and foe alike of its accuracy should be a top priority for Obama.
I don’t have a ton to say about this. Hannah is mostly upset that (a) we apparently don’t plan to bomb Iran back into the Stone Age, and (b) we’ve been reluctant to do….something….to protect the interests of various Mideast thugs who happen to have been allied with America from time to time. Overall, in fact, his bill of particulars against Obama is surprisingly weak, just a couple of barely on-point quotes plus the fact that Obama is withdrawing from Iraq (a George Bush policy, though he doesn’t mention this), he hasn’t solved the Israel-Palestine problem yet (what a shocker), and he’s failed to bomb Iran (another George Bush policy, which Hannah has been upset about for years). All that’s missing is a tossed-off reference to the Obama Apology Tour™. Yawn.
No, the only interesting part of the whole piece is Hannah’s obvious comfort with the idea of a “benevolent imperium” and a “Pax Americana.” Plainly he doesn’t think he needs to hide his preferences behind euphemisms and shilly-shallying. America ought to be the puppet master that pulls the strings in the Middle East, and that’s the end of it. Anyone got a problem with that?
