Academic

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: From Baghdad To Benghazi: Everyone Is a Convert to George W. Bush?s Freedom A?

By Glenn Reynolds

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: From Baghdad To Benghazi: Everyone Is a Convert to George W. Bush’s Freedom Agenda.

Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush’s freedom agenda, it’s not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed “realism” of Years One and Two of President Obama’s foreign policy – the “smart power” antidote to Bush’s alleged misty-eyed idealism.

Read the whole thing. And that whole “smart power” / “smart diplomacy” thing has kept turning up short on the “smart” part.

Plus this: “For Libyans, the effect of the Iraq war is even more concrete. However much bloodshed they face, they have been spared the threat of genocide. Gaddafi was so terrified by what we did to Saddam & Sons that he plea-bargained away his weapons of mass destruction. For a rebel in Benghazi, that is no small matter.” Yes, and even the New York Times noted that.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on March 05, 2011 (boomark / email).