Obama's Ironic Foreign Policy -- By Victor Davis Hanson, PJ Media

In the old postwar, pre-Obama world, the United States accepted a 65-year burden of defeating Soviet communism. It led the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. The American fleet and overseas bases ensured that global commerce, communications, and travel were largely free and uninterrupted. Globalization was a sort of synonym for Americanization.

It was neither a particularly pleasant nor popular task. To keep the Soviets out of the Persian Gulf, we made unpopular deals of convenience with odious dictators and monarchs to keep the oil freely flowing to global consumers. In return, the billionaire and authoritarian sheikdoms often used cartels and monopolies to jack up the price of oil, while subsidizing on the sly anti-Western Islamic terrorists. The United States almost had to beg those in the Middle East for the costly privilege of protecting them and buying their $100-a-barrel oil. What a strange world the U.S. created: we found Saudi oil; we protected Saudi Arabia; we kept the Persian Gulf open and secure; and we earned embargoes, OPEC, and 15 Saudi mass murderers on 9/11.

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