{"id":32708,"date":"2018-02-27T11:17:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=32708"},"modified":"2018-02-27T11:17:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-27T16:17:42","slug":"some-perspective-from-victor-davis-hanson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=32708","title":{"rendered":"Some Perspective From Victor Davis Hanson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson<\/a> posted an article at National Review<\/a> today about Russia’s<\/a> relationship to American politics<\/a>. The timeline of the article begins about 2009.<\/p>\n

The article begins with the following:<\/p>\n

Start with two givens: Vladimir Putin<\/a> is neither stupid nor content to watch an aging, shrinking, corrupt, and dysfunctional \u2014 but still large and nuclear \u2014 Russia recede to second- or third-power status. From 2009 to 2015, in one of the most remarkable and Machiavellian efforts in recent strategic history, Putin almost single-handedly parlayed a deserved losing hand into a winning one. He pulled this off by flattering, manipulating, threatening, and outsmarting an inept and politically obsessed Obama administration<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the Obama presidency and the tenures of Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, Russia made astounding strategic gains \u2014 given its intrinsic economic, social, and military weaknesses. The Obama reaction was usually incoherent (Putin was caricatured as a \u201cbored kid in the back of the classroom<\/a>\u201d or as captive of a macho shtick). After each aggressive Russian act, the administration lectured that \u201cit is not in Russia\u2019s interest to . . . \u201d \u2014 as if Obama knew better than a thuggish Putin what was best for autocratic Russia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A review of Russian inroads, presented in no particular order, is one of the more depressing chapters in post-war U.S. diplomatic history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The article lists the missteps of the Obama Administration regarding Russia. It notes that Russia successfully annexed Crimea with little response from NATO. Russia essentially took control of eastern Ukraine. Russia also exerted enough pressure to prevent America<\/a> from supplying the Czech Republic and Poland the missile defense systems they had been promised.<\/p>\n

The article reminds us:<\/p>\n

Russia since 2013 had sought to interfere in U.S. elections with impunity, so much so that as late as October 18, 2016, on the eve of the anticipated Clinton landslide, Obama mocked any suggestion that an entity could ever successfully warp the outcome of a U.S. election. (\u201cThere is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America\u2019s elections. There\u2019s no evidence that that has happened in the past or that it will happen this time, and so I\u2019d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and make his case to get votes.\u201d)<\/strong><\/p>\n

After a near 40-year hiatus, Russia was invited into the Middle East<\/a> by the Obama administration. It soon became the power broker in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq and to some extent offered passive-aggressive support for Israel and Turkey \u2014 a position of influence that it retains to this day and that would now be hard to undo. It posed as a \u201chelper\u201d to the Obama administration with Iran and helped broker the disastrous Iran deal \u2014 and then used U.S. acquiescence to Iran to fuel the ascendance of the Iran-Hezbollah-Assad crescent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inviting Russia into the Middle East is not a recipe for peace. The article also cites other instances of Russia managing to create chaos in America. Please follow the link to read the entire article for the full picture.<\/p>\n

The article concludes:<\/p>\n

The verdict on Russia, the Obama administration, and the Clinton campaign is now becoming clearer. Russian reset resurrected Putin\u2019s profile and hurt U.S. interests. It grew out of a partisan rebuke of the Bush administration\u2019s perceived harshness to Russia and was later massaged to help Barack Obama<\/a>\u2019s reelection campaign by granting Russia concessions in hopes of a foreign-policy success that would lead to perceived calm. Russia deliberately inserted itself into the 2016 election, as it had in previous elections, because 1) it had suffered few if any prior consequences, 2) it wanted to sow chaos in the American political system, and 3) it saw a way to warp Clinton\u2019s efforts to smear Donald Trump<\/a>, first, no doubt to compromise a likely President Clinton<\/a>, and, in unexpected fashion, later to undermine an actual President Trump.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0At very little cost, Russia has embarrassed American democracy, played the media for the partisans they are, completely discredited the Clinton campaign and name, and created a year of nonstop hysteria to undermine the Trump administration.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it is not over yet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would disagree that the Russia has embarrassed American democracy–I think we have done that ourselves. The election of President Trump so unhinged the media and the Democratic Party that they forgot the rules of fair play. I understand that during political campaigns sometimes things go on that shouldn’t, but the Clinton campaign overstepped the bounds of running for office in ways that we have not seen before. At least during the Nixon administration when Nixon tried to use the government to collect information or government agencies as political weapons there were enough people in government agencies with integrity to tell him no. Evidently that is no longer the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at National Review today about Russia’s relationship to American politics. The timeline of the article begins about 2009. The article begins with the following: Start with two givens: Vladimir Putin is neither stupid nor … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3807,3357,10409,420,1457,3035,1083,3105,3327],"class_list":["post-32708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-3807","tag-donald-trump","tag-donald-trump-presidential-campaign","tag-federal-bureau-of-investigation","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-robert-mueller","tag-russia","tag-victor-davis-hanson","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32708"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32712,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32708\/revisions\/32712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}