After America - Mark Steyn [136]
So instead of unilateral Bush cowboyism, we elected President Outreach, a man happy to apologize for the entirety of American policy pre-January 2009.
How’s that working out?
In 2010, Zogby International and the University of Maryland conducted an “Arab Public Opinion Poll” for the Brookings Institution.10 They interviewed respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—the so-called “moderate” Arab Street. So how did President Obama do with the citizens of our allies after all the Islamoschmoozing and other outreach to the Muslim world?
In 2008, the last year of the Bush Texas-cowboy terror, 83 percent of Arabs had a very or somewhat negative view of the United States.11 By 2010, the second year of the Obama apology tour, 85 percent had a very or somewhat negative view. So much for the outreach.
So if they don’t like Obama, who do they like? The poll asked which world leader (other than their own) do you most admire? Here’s the Top Twelve:
1. Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey (20 percent);
2. Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela (13 percent);
3. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran (12 percent);
4. Hassan Nasrallah, head honcho of Hizb’Allah (9 percent);
5. Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria (7 percent);
6. Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France (6 percent);
7. Osama bin Laden, Abbottabad’s leading pornography aficionado (6 percent);
8. Jacques Chirac, the retired Gallic charmer (4 percent);
9. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi (4 percent);
10. Hosni Mubarak, president of Egypt (4 percent);
11. Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid, Emir of Dubai (3 percent);
12. Saddam Hussein, Iraq War loser (2 percent).
What a hit parade! Twenty percent voted for the avowedly Islamist leader of a formerly secular pluralist Turkey; 57 percent voted for current dictators, dead dictators, thugs, terrorists, and a couple of wealthy minor princelings of the Muslim world; and the remainder celebrated diversity with Hugo Chavez and a pair of French roués. Maybe if Obama abased himself even more ostentatiously, maybe if next time he bows to the King of Saudi Arabia he licks the guy’s feet, maybe then he can boost his numbers up to Jacques Chirac level.
But, just as fascinating was the so-called “realist” reaction of the pollsters’ clients, the Brookings Institution. They took all the above as a sign that America needs to work harder to distance itself from negative perceptions that it’s too closely allied with Israel.
I don’t think so. America could join Iran in a nuclear strike on the Zionist Entity, and those numbers wouldn’t shift significantly. Because sometimes who you are is more important than anything you do. America will discover, as Israel did, that a one-way urge for normaliut will lead to a more dangerous world. In the vacuum of U.S. retreat, anti-Americanism will nevertheless metastasize and crowd in from our borders. In 2010 Die Welt reported that, on his recent visit to Teheran, Hugo Chavez had signed an agreement to place Iranian missiles at a jointly operated military base in Venezuela.12 In the years ahead, distant enemies will seed new proxies in Latin America (as Iran did to Israel with Hamas and Hizb’Allah), and suicide bombers will board our city buses, too.
American isolation is already under way. China is the world’s biggest manufacturer, the world’s biggest exporter, the post-colonial patron of resource-rich Africa, the post-downturn patron of cash-strapped Mediterranean Europe, and the biggest trading partner of India, Brazil, and other emerging powers. Why be surprised that in such a world, getting on with America matters less and less? Sometimes that’s good news: Washington and its geriatric EU allies wanted the bonkers Copenhagen “climate change” deal; Brazil and India joined with China to block it. Sometimes it’s not so good: the leaders of Brazil (again) and Turkey, two supposed American allies assiduously courted and flattered by Obama during his first year, flew in to high-five Mahmoud Ahmadinejad