Bret Stephens: Far From Being An Aberrant Choice (For The Nobel), President Obama Was The Ideal One, Scandinavianally Speaking'

Per usual, Stephens is spot on:

The peace Nobel is a much misunderstood prize. With the exception of a few really grotesque picks (Le Duc Tho, Rigoberta Menchú, Yasser Arafat), a few inspired ones (Carl von Ossietzky, Norman Borlaug, Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Aung San Suu Kyi) and some worthy if obvious ones (Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk), most of the prize winners draw from the obscure ranks of the sorts of people the late Oriana Fallaci liked to call "the Goodists."

Who are the Goodists? They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good.

Columbia University President Nicholas Murray Butler, who won the Peace Prize in 1931, was a Goodist. In 1910 he wrote that "to suppose that men and women into whose intellectual and moral instruction and upbuilding have gone the glories of the world's philosophy and art and poetry and religion . . . are to fly at each others' throats to ravage, to kill, in the hope of somehow establishing thereby truth and right and justice is to suppose the universe to be stood upon its apex."

The First World War, which began four years later, rendered a less charitable judgment on the benefits of moral and intellectual instruction. Yet Butler later became a leading campaigner for the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war as "an instrument of national policy." This monument to hope, which won U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg a Nobel in 1929 (France's Aristide Briand had already won it in 1926 for the equally feckless Locarno Pact), was immediately ratified by dozens of countries, including Japan—which invaded Manchuria in 1931; and Italy—which invaded Abyssinia in 1935; and Germany—which invaded Poland in 1939.

Characteristically, the Nobel Committee awarded no Peace Prizes for most of the Second World War: not to Franklin Roosevelt for turning America into an arsenal for democracy; not to Winston Churchill for rallying Britain against the Nazi onslaught; not to Charles de Gaulle for keeping the flame of a free France alive; not to the U.S. Army Rangers for scaling the heights of Pointe du Hoc on a June morning in 1944; not to Douglas MacArthur for turning Japan into a country at peace with itself and its neighbors.

These were the soldiers and statesmen who did more than anyone else to assure the survival of freedom in the 20th century. Being Goodists, however, the Nobel Committee chose instead to lavish its honors on people like the wan New England pacifist Emily Greene Balch (in 1946), the tedious British disarmament obsessive Philip Noel-Baker (1959) and the Irish antinuclear campaigner and Lenin Prize Winner Seán MacBride (1974).

These names don't exactly spring to mind as having made a lasting and genuine contribution to world peace. Nor, one suspects, will history lavish its highest honors on Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Wangari Maathai, Mohamed ElBaradei, Al Gore or Martti Ahtisaari, to name some of this decade's winners. They are merely the Frank Kelloggs and Seán MacBrides of the future.

Ah, the "Goodists." All that Hitler/Stalin/Ahmadinejad/Chavez/Jong-il/bin-Laden chap needs is a little diplomacy--a little hope & change.

Sound familiar?

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Bret Stephens: Return Of The Neocons

Bret Stephens is always good. He's just good-er than usual this week:

... neocons are back because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il and Vladimir Putin never went away. A star may have shone in the east the day Barack Obama became president. But these three kings, at least, have yet to proffer the usual gifts of gold and incense and myrrh.

Instead, the presents have been of a different kind. North Korea claims to be in the final stages of building a uranium enrichment facility—its second route to an atomic bomb. Iran, again caught cheating on its Nonproliferation Treaty obligations, has responded by wagging a finger at the U.S. and firing a round of missiles. Syria continues to aid and abet jihadists operating in Iraq. NATO countries have generally refused to send more troops to Afghanistan, and are all the more reluctant to do so now that the administration is itself wavering on the war.

As for Russia, its ambassador to the U.N. last week bellyached that the U.S. "continues to be a rather difficult negotiating partner"—and that was after Mr. Obama cancelled the missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic. Thus does the politics of concession meet with the logic of contempt.

All this must, at some level, come as a surprise to an administration so deeply in love with itself. "I am well aware of the expectations that accompany my presidency around the world," Mr. Obama told the U.N.'s General Assembly last week with his usual modesty. He added that those expectations were "rooted in hope—the hope that real change is possible, and the hope that America will be a leader in bringing about such change."

Yet what sounds like "hope" in, say, Toronto or Barcelona tends to come across as fecklessness in Warsaw and Jerusalem. In Moscow and Tehran, it reads like credulity—and an opportunity to exploit the U.S. at a moment of economic weakness and political self-infatuation.

For those much-scorned neocons, none of this comes as a surprise. Neoconservatives generally take the view that the internal character of a regime usually predicts the nature of its foreign policy. Governments that are answerable to their own people and accountable to a rule of law tend to respect the rights of their neighbors, honor their treaty commitments, and abide by the international rules of the road. By contrast, regimes that prey on their own citizens are likely to prey on their neighbors as well. Their word is the opposite of their bond.

That's why neocons have no faith in any deals or "grand bargains" the U.S. might sign with North Korea or Iran over their nuclear programs: Cheating is in the DNA of both regimes, and the record is there to prove it. Nor do neocons put much stock in the notion that there's a "reset" button with the Kremlin. Russia is the quintessential spoiler state, seeking its advantage in America's troubles at home and abroad. Ditto for Syria, which has perfected the art of taking credit for solving problems of its own creation.

Where neocons do put their faith is in American power, not just military or economic power but also as an instrument of moral and political suasion. Disarmament? The last dictator to relinquish his nuclear program voluntarily was Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, who did so immediately following Saddam Hussein's capture. Democratization? Contrary to current conventional wisdom, democracy is often imposed, or at least facilitated, by U.S. pressure—in the Philippines, in the Balkans and, yes, in Iraq. Human rights? Anwar Ibrahim, the beleaguered Malaysian opposition leader, told me last week that "the only country that can stand up" to abusive regimes is the United States. "If they know the administration is taking a soft stance [on human rights], they will go on a rampage."

None of this is to say that neoconservatism represents some kind of infallible doctrine—or that it's even a doctrine. Neocons have erred in overestimating the U.S. public's willingness to engage in long struggles on behalf of other people. They have erred also in overestimating the willingness of other people to fight for themselves, or for their freedom.

But as the pendulum has swung to a U.S. foreign policy based on little more than the personal attractions of the president, it's little wonder that the world is casting about for an alternative. And a view of the world that understands that American power still furnishes the margin between freedom and tyranny, and between prosperity and chaos, is starting to look better all the time. Even in France.

One thing is clear: No amount of 'Hope' & 'Change' & 'Blame George W. Bush' can make Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, &c., go away.

If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.

Kim Jong-il, Rot In Hell

- Fox News is reporting that Kim Jong-il, "dear leader," suffered a stroke in August. It's not a very Christian thing for me to say, but I hope this is the beginning of a short, painful period before he goes the way of all the earth and leaves his country susceptible to overtures of peace and democracy and sanity (get rid of the nukes!) from the West. Die painfully, die fast, KJ. And take Castro and Chavez with you. Ahmadinejad, too.

- Obama has a "comprehensive" strategy for bringing the war to a close. Not one that "tinkers around the edges." You know, a different one to the one that actually won the war. Apparently 8000 troops coming home is not enough.

Look, all you need to know about the war is that The Surge won it, McCain supported it and Obama did not. If we followed Obama's plan, we would have lost the war in Iraq and lost Iraq to al-Qaeda and Iran. End of story.

- The leftist nutroots are trying to make a Rev. Wright out of Gov. Palin's church in Wasilla. Unfortunately for the nutroots, the only controversial thing made up there was a bad joke about how Kerry voters might not make it to heaven. Of course, fouling up their narrative is the fact that the statement was made 2 years after Governor Palin left the church.

The lesson from the nutroots is clear: Never let the facts mess up your narrative.

Let's play "compare 'n contrast":

Rev. Wright: "Goddamn America!"
Gov. Palin's Pastor 2 Years After She Left the Church: "You know, people who vote for Kerry might not get into heaven. [laughter, because people understand that it's a joke]"

This replays itself in the story they're making up about her banning one of the Harry Potter books. Unfortunately for them, she was supposed to have banned it 2 years before it was even released.

Come on, Angry Left, you can do better.

The good news herre is that the American public is far smarter than the leftists of this country believe. In their mind, all they have to do is create controversey about Gov. Palin's past. They don't understand that it actually has to be a real controversey for it to have any legs. Like you, dear readers, they are able to play "compare 'n contrast" and see that what Governor Palin's pastor said after she left the church is in a different galaxy from the hatred spewed by Obama's close personal adviser--though apparently only spewed when Obama was not in attendance. (Americans also don't believe that bit of fiction).

Let me also point out one more bit of idiocy: James Taranto, one of my fav. columnists wrote about the damaging and distracting power of hate. You are seeing evidence of this in the way the Angry Left is treating Governor Palin.

The controversey they created in the wake of her nomination drove people by the millions to watch her speech and see for themselves. Calling her inexperienced caused people to play "compare 'n contrast" with Barack Obama and Sarah Palin--a #1 vs. #2 comparison Republicans will win every time. And now, by going after her church and her pastor--especially when they have nothing(!)--will only remind people of Obama's history with Wright.

This is stupid, stupid, stupid.

When McCain/Palin win in November, we'll all have to give the Angry Left a tip of the hat for their big assist. Thanks, leftist nutroots.


If you have tips, questions, comments or suggestions, email me at lybberty@gmail.com.