The Obama legacy: More tyranny and chaos abroad
By Reuel Marc Gerecht • 9/10/16 12:01 AM
In foreign affairs, unlike math, the ultimate determination of success or failure isn't immediately obvious. Major foreign events — wars, revolutions, coup d'etats and treaties — can take a long time to play out.
The Korean Conflict, once nearly as unpopular as the Vietnam War, is now probably viewed by most Americans as a "good war," and Washington's 63-year defense of Seoul as a worthwhile investment. Thirty-seven thousand U.S. servicemen, a number that dwarfs those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't die in vain.
Historical judgments are temperamental and subject to change until sufficient good news or bad piles up — and even then things can change given the mood and character of the nation looking back.
Few Democrats really want to expend much effort touting the foreign-policy successes of Jimmy Carter; more Democrats, but still not many, want to remember how ardently they believed Ronald Reagan would bring on Armageddon. The Soviet empire's collapse in 1989-90 and Mikhail Gorbachev's judgment on Reagan (a "great president") puts anti-Reagan leftists in a difficult position. Facts can matter.
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