“England has no eternal friends, England has no perpetual enemies, England has only eternal and perpetual interests”. Lord Palmerston
Thanks to Barack Obama Iraq is burning. ISIS forces rampage as Iraqi forces crumble before the onslaught of fanatical Islamists. As Iraq burns and smolders, Obama’s foreign policy proceeds and America’s national interest is again sacrificed to Obama’s new world order. But what is “national interest” and what, if any, interest do we, as a nation, have in far away Iraq?
National interest must be defined as any circumstance that affects the security, prosperity, and prestige of our sovereign nation.
The most basic purpose of government is to provide for the common defense. Therefore, anything that threatens our security becomes a keen national interest. Our response to national security threats must be swift and unambiguous. When American lives are threatened at home and abroad, there should be a powerful military response and a projection of power which culminates in absolute victory. Anything short of this is a betrayal of the American people and of its military. As Reagan put it, our power of defense should be unassailable. Peace can only be maintained through the deterrent effect of a vastly superior military force. Maintaining the status of the world’s only superpower should be America’s primary national interest.
American economic interests must be guarded by an administration which is committed to a philosophy of American exceptionalism. This means that foreign policy must be pursued to advantage American economic interests to the exclusion of competing international powers. This may strike many in academe as a novel idea, but when America prospers the world prospers. We see the effects of Obama’s administration which views our economic interests with disdain, despising our capitalist system yet all too willing to enjoy the fruits of capitalist prosperity. Obama’s marxism is antithetical to the capitalism of our founders. Our economy languishes while Obama favors not our interests but those of the third world and European powers. Obama delights in drawing comparisons with France and models his economy after the socialist continental nations.
Reagan was a master at illuminating American power and achievement, drawing nations to wonder at the “shining city on a hill.” Obama embarks on European and Middle East apology junkets and bemoans his fictions of American injustices domestically and imperialism abroad. Where Reagan extolled the virtues of a nation which has produced the greatest social compact in human history, Obama can only carp and unravel the magnificent tapestry of the Constitution. Again, Obama betrays the national interest.
Though America has been the most compassionate country in the world, national interest does not include notions of meddling in the affairs of other nations, so long as their operations serve our interest. This may include cooperation with and support of dictatorial powers that pursue outcomes that are parallel to our own. As a free people, we desire to see the rest of humanity freed from the bonds of servitude, however, our resources are not infinite and must be put to the service of our own sovereign national interests.
Barack Obama has ignored the dictates of national interest in favor of seeking parity or even disparity in relation to the world’s nations. Obama views our actions, regardless of their merit, as meddling, imperialist, and predatory. This is why he leaves the fate of the Iraqi people to ravening wolves who hoist the black flag on their standard. There is no American exceptionalism for Obama, there is only America standing uneasily among peers in a global community.
Our policy must reject the notion of parity with a global community of nations and recognize American sovereignty and exceptionality. A sound foreign policy seeks our own interest and our own advantage among a dysfunctional community of often hostile nations. Americans need a new view of sovereignty, of an America that flourishes and seeks its own best advantage. Nations do not seek friendships and democracy is an aberration in the brutal totalitarian history of man. If America is not aggressive in its defense of its sovereignty it will fall prey to the eternal predations of aggressor nations. Make no mistake, we are swimming in an international tank filled with sharks, sniffing for blood.
Iraq does represent a national interest that impacts directly on national security since the cancerous spread of fascistic Mohammadism is an ever present threat to citizens domestically and abroad. We need only make reference to the attacks on 9/11 to make a case for national security concerns. Our national interest is also implicated through the deaths of 4,500 American soldiers during the Iraq war—no stronger case for implicating national interest could be made. Additionally, our national interest is impacted by virtue of the mountains of national treasure expended in Iraq. Also, America’s prestige is marred by the capitulation of Obama in Iraq, having left a power vacuum that ISIS has been most happy to fill. Obama has, in essence, provided a training camp for future terrorists that could not have been imagined in Osama Bin Laden’s wildest dream.
However, given the incompetence, disregard, and unpatriotic sentiments of Barack Obama it cannot be a conscientious conservatives position to return to Iraq. Simply put, our military men and women deserve better than Obama. And, until the American people can supply a President who is also a statesman and patriot, we have no business sending troops into harms way.
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