After reading several very good criticisms of Obama’s speeches in Europe, especially Germany, from generally intelligent writers from the right, particularly Jeff Jacoby and Victor Davis Hanson I would like to summarize the view from some of the conservative critics.

Obama generally spoke as a citizen of the world rather than as a proud citizen of the United States. (In his speech he claims to be both). He spoke of how the forces of evil were routed by the world standing together.

To the conservative opponents this is naive at best, factually incorrect, and utopian nihilistic at worst.

The two big world wars of the 20th century did not happen because the world stood together but because the world stood vastly apart. The balance of power that existed was tipped by hard decisions, strong commitments and the will to defeat a specific enemy that was clearly defined. There was no thought of moral equivalency or delusions of mere misunderstandings that could be negotiated away with just the right ‘brilliant’ leader of the free world.

The Berlin airlift did not happen because the world stood together. It happened because Harry Truman made a hard decision often against the will of his advisors and often unpopular with the general public who were recently exhausted from WW II. The CIA thought his act may have ignited WW III. This is leadership; not a popularity contest. It often requires commitment to clear principles and making hard decisions with great risk and often incomplete information.

The wall fell because Ronald Reagan focused on driving the final nail in the imploding communist empire. He was frequently unpopular for his actions and he was often ridiculed as a war monger and an unintelligent fool. Sound familiar?

The war against terrorism will not be won by the world standing together, especially through its ‘official mouthpiece’ the morally bankrupt United Nations. The UN stood by as Saddam Hussein built nuclear weapons and condemned Israel for destroying this threat. The UN has been silent while the Muslim world has perpetuated an anti-Semitism that would have made the Hitler youth blush. The UN has been ineffective stopping genocides in Rwanda and Darfur

Terrorism has been set back severely by the decisions of George Bush and his administration and the troops that died fulfilling his policies. Those critics who state publicly that we are less safe as a result (Obama at AIPAC) defy credulity.

This is not to ignore that we have stumbled severely, and made many clumsy diplomatic and military moves that given a second chance we would do differently. But it would be terminally misguided to focus on these errors rather than the end game of fighting a clear evil that the ‘world together’ had allowed to flourish.

Obama’s world vision is the dream; but the reality is that opposing evil requires superior power in the hands to use it wisely. His vision is more childlike solutions to adult problems.

Ready Jeff Jacoby’s discussion, Missing from that Berlin Speech in the Boston Globe 7/27/08

And Victor Davis Hanson at the National Review Online in It’s America, Obama-A modest dissent to the citizen of the world.

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