VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:: As Time Goes By . . . – NRO
By MB Snow at February 21, 2012 | 1:05 pm | Print
It is hard to remember a more tense time in the last 20 years. Tiny Israel may be poised to preempt the nuclear capabilities of Iran (an Iran that itself once attempted, unsuccessfully, to take out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak before Israel finished the job), whose terrorist appendages and missiles have the ability to do it a great deal of damage in return. How such a war would escalate or end, no one knows. There is no sense of a global effort to stop Iran’s proliferation, given that China and Russia seem to enjoy the irritation that Iran causes the West. I think U.S. policy amounts to a sort of shrug (we publicly discourage the Israelis, privately sorta hope they do, and publicly will sorta condemn them if they do). Whatever is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq, no one seems to know, or — despite our tens of thousands of troops in combat — even seem to care, given that the administration seems irked more than engaged.
In California gas is already over $4 a gallon — in an off-peak February, amid slow growth and high unemployment. What it will be during the summer driving season and if there is a tiny upturn in the economy — or as the Gulf of Hormuz heats up — we can only guess. Once more trying to release some oil from the strategic petroleum reserve — while putting new leases off limits in the west, in Alaska, offshore, and in the gulf, coupled with the Keystone cancellation — is not going to do much. Putin killed the Russian reset and wants everyone to know it. The Arab Spring is a bitter winter. There is no Libyan model for Syria. Mexico blames us for its own gun violence (despite guns flowing to the cartels from all over the world), and is suing an American state to force it not to enforce U.S. immigration law. It seems to think that 11 million of its nationals who entered the U.S. illegally and with Mexican government encouragement must be de facto American citizens — given their lucrative multibillion-dollar remittances.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/291453/time-goes-victor-davis-hanson
via As Time Goes By . . . – By Victor Davis Hanson – The Corner – National Review Online.