London Calling

The ice age is coming, the sun is zooming in; Engines stop running and the wheat
is growing thin; A nuclear error, but I have no fear; London is drowning-and I live
by the river

I don't know if you all have noticed, but there is a lot of violence going on right now. The Iranian people are protesting the results of an election (that probably would have gone the same way even if the polls weren't rigged). Honduras's military has staged a coup under the banner of democracy and the surrounding countries (including Obama lover Hugo Chavez) are vowing a counter-revolution to reinstate the leftist president. North Korea is playing "I-squish-your-head" from across the Pacific by suggesting a 4th of July attack on Hawaii (or in their words a "fireshower of nuclear retaliation", which sounds quite refreshing). Oh, and Chicago (with some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country) is literally bleeding out.

Nonetheless, our media outlets spent the weekend talking about how awesome Michael Jackson is.

What are we to make of this? I think the first thing to be clear on is that the world is no longer afraid of us. We can see the passive effects of this in Iran and the more aggressive effects in North Korea. This can't be completely blamed on Obama, but it can certainly be seen as an indictment of his "I want everyone to like me" approach. One thing the "blame America first" crowd refuses to understand is that every other country is looking out for itself first and the US gets a bad rap because we have the good fortune of being so well off that we can avoid some of the international agreements that become traps. Obama has attempted to take us back to the bargaining table, which some of the more aggressive countries may see as weakness. I am all for diplomacy, but one of the rules America has always followed is to "negotiate from a position of power." Obama's apologies make that power invisible, which then forces the US into the position of being unable to bring that power to the bargaining table when dealing with North Korea, Iran, and the legion of countries that wish us harm. When you can't negotiate from a position of power, you have no other choice than to simply use it.