Obama and the alchemy of appeasement

Submitted by Dave (United States), Sep 5, 2022 at 15:41

Given his upbringing, race, and origins, there's no doubt that Obama had a sentimental affinity towards Islam and third world cultures in general, and thus tended to over-idealize them. Yet, others with a similar background, even those with an explicitly Muslim one, have been far more critical and realistic. For example, the authoress reviewed here, while not Muslim, nevertheless hails from a Muslim, third world country, but is no rosy Obama in her attitudes.
I think that Obama is rather typical of what has been characterized in the West as woke. This outlook is very common on college campuses, especially elite ones like Harvard, which Obama attended. That would account for his idealization of the Palestinians and for his tendency to view conflicts as stemming from racism, rather than from, say, toxic ideology. As an extension of that thinking, reconciliation is strongly preferred for conflict resolution over military deterrence. Hence, when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, Obama sent blankets. He pressured Israel to freeze settlement expansion. He advanced the JCPOA with Iran and lifted sanctions. He unilaterally abandoned the missile defense shield in Europe. None of these things worked, they only made things worse. Yet, like the medieval alchemists, today's woke alchemists still believe in the power of appeasement to turn leaden wolves into golden lambs. That just makes the wolves hungrier. Those of us who don't want to be eaten need to push back hard.

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