So seamless is the stupidity undergirding Neal Gabler’s jeremiad in today’s Boston Globe concerning the alleged misnomer ‘American exceptionalism,’ that it’s difficult to know where to begin. 

Not unlike most liberals, Gabler confuses the government and the American people. Indeed, the predicate of his argument is that, in contrast to President Carter’s insistence in a government “as good as the American people,” everything of significance that has been accomplished has been because the government was better than the American people.

In Gabler’s view, it’s as though the ‘government’ is some kind of convenient abstraction rather than the faithful and credible reflection of our Founding Fathers’ vision, regardless of whether it neatly comported with contemporary sentiment or fashion. Therefore, his assertion that FDR took America into WWII against conventional wisdom belies the fact that principled leadership is commonly unpopular, but often, as in the case of both 20^th century world wars, is consistent with Republic’s founding values.

The Gablers of the world seem lost in a kind of post-modernist fog, and for purely political motivations, refuse to consider that Republicans’ defense of American exceptionalism isn’t based on ideology but rather on a close reading of our founding documents, from the Declaration of Independence to the Federalist Papers to the Constitution.

Although missteps are inevitable, they enjoy—or suffer from—a bipartisanship that many, Gabler apparently included, seem to overlook. It has less to do with a candid defense of the ingenious symmetry contemplated by our founders, which members of both parties ought to champion, than an equally candid understanding that although all systems of governance are flawed, America’s is unique in its capacity for beneficence at home and abroad, and has a remarkable instinct for stern introspection and self-correction.

Inextricably intertwined with the liberals’ loathing of all things conservative is their transparently self-serving propensity to conflate it with their willful denial that, on balance, conservative policies are far more aligned with our founding principles than those of liberals. Indeed, whether it’s the individualism enshrined in our founding documents or an unapologetic acquittal of our democratic principles, along with the patriotism implicit in both, you won’t see conservatives getting squeamish when defending them.

Gabler observes that LBJ couldn’t have prosecuted the war in Vietnam without support from the American people, neglecting that the prosecution of a war must be separated from whether or not it’s justified. Despite the fact that it’s viewed as a strategic—and moral—failure, that war can, in fact, be justified. That it was, to put it generously, imperfectly prosecuted is quite another matter.

Finally, Gabler adduces the Greeks as the textbook example of those who understood the perils of hubris. Although hubris is a chestnut indiscriminately trotted out to support a contemporary allegation, an even cursory study of the Peloponnesian War indicates that neither Athens nor Sparta were immune from it. 

Although America, like every nation, has many foibles and makes ill-informed decisions, it betrays a want of intellectual generosity, and, indeed, an unwarranted level of self-criticism, to overlook the ways in which her exceptionalism—which is merely the extension of our Founding Fathers’ vision—has bettered the lives of her citizens, as well as the entire world, at times at a staggering cost.

As recent history demonstrates, cultural entitlement is the precursor to political entitlement. With notably few exceptions and in a shameful, seamless, fashion, politicians faithfully follow this model by perpetuating our economic ills with their excessive responses to otherwise manageable problems.

Liberal commentators, of course, are in the vanguard of this process and like overly attentive herd dogs nip at the heels of their charges, in this case Congressional liberals and the liberal-in-chief, President Obama. For a prime example, we turn to Bob Herbert, whose piece in today’s New York Times is prototypically ingenious in its ability to thoroughly miss the target.

Herbert laments the most recent unemployment numbers and makes the commendable first step of recognizing that those without jobs are suffering. He criticizes Mr. Obama for not pushing for another stimulus package and quotes polls showing that people believe banks and Wall Street benefited from the first stimulus. 

Thanks to the well-entrenched entitlement mentality, underwritten by the modern liberal polity, average Americans now look to the government for resolution of their private problems. Indeed, whether it’s getting a job, paying for health insurance, or finding “affordable” housing, all of which have been rightfully our own problems to solve, the government is now seen as the proper intermediary. 

Herbert’s blinkered narrative continues:

We’re running on a treadmill that is carrying us backward. Something approaching 10 million new jobs would have to be created just to get back to where we were when the recession began in December 2007.  There is nothing currently in the works to jump-start job creation on that scale.

Predictably, he recommends a “massive long-term campaign to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure,” forgetful that a significant portion of the $785 billion in the first stimulus package was supposed to go to “shovel-ready” jobs. Some of that did, in fact, trickle down to fund such jobs, but the outcome by no means met expectations. 

But, he’s absolutely correct when he writes that there is “nothing currently in the works to jump-start job creation,” which after nine months of Obama’s tenure and in the context of a Democratic-controlled Congress, is a savage criticism indeed.

What the Herberts of the world astonishingly overlook is the abundance of evidence from recent history: To wit, every time marginal taxes have been reduced, along with corporate and capital gains taxes, not only have federal receipts increased, but employment has increased and, the silent killer known as inflation has been kept in check.

But although reducing taxes creates freedom, it doesn’t feed the entitlement Leviathan, rather, it starves it and thereby inhibits political power, and that is simply unacceptable to the modern liberal.

Amid the apparently endless series of speeches and comments, on issues grand and frivolous, and informed by a nearly limitless confidence in a Midas touch that has thus far been a leaden failure, President Obama’s failure to secure Chicago for the 2016 Olympics is further evidence that his presidency is slated for mediocrity.

If political nuance were a virtue Mr. Obama would be a candidate for sainthood, since his every move on the global stage has been thoroughly scripted to comport with the world’s view that America is an over-valued stock.  Indeed, if results are in short supply, he has succeeded in undermining the American exceptionalism that legions of patriots before him sacrificed to safeguard. 

Whether it’s his Cairo speech, which set the tone for a newly chastised America in the context of college campus PC, his appearance with dictators such as Chavez, or his feckless demands for Iran to allow inspections, this president’s airy rhetoric amply compensates for a lack of substance.

He stunned our allies and brought smiles to our enemies when he capitulated to Russian demands to scrap the missile defense system for the Czech Republic and Poland, which reflected an apparent ignorance that Putin, not Medvedev is the man behind the curtain, if you will.  His much-vaunted posturing for strong sanctions will never see the light of day because Putin and the Chinese are inveterately opposed to them.

That buys Iran more time to complete their nuclear program and puts Obama in the untenable position of having to either confront Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs—he’s more likely to demand that the U.S. begin drilling in ANWR—or stand by as Israel strikes. 

Obama’s previously unwavering support for McChrystal’s troop surge has succumbed to his reprisal of McClellan paralysis compliments of his base, which sends an equivocal message to our allies in-country and strategic comfort to our enemies.

American history is replete with examples of presidents who, quite apart from innate intelligence, lacked the resolve and vision to lead our nation during perilous times.  Some brought too fine a touch to the charge of foreign affairs, letting opportunities pass unexploited, or, obtusely misread the electorate on key domestic issues, squandering precious political capital in the process.  It’s astonishing that Mr. Obama seems on a trajectory to accomplish both.

His lofty and misguided dream of landing the Olympics for Chicago is but the latest example of his adroit ability to misread the political landscape, compromising confidence in his leadership while embarrassing himself.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan, although he's raised it to something of an art form.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Although trust is a virtue, in the hands of politicians it has a short shelf life.  It’s not that their intentions are inherently mischievous but rather that as their policy agenda evolves they start to confuse the fervency of their aspirations with credibility in the eyes of the electorate. 

Unlike what President Obama is peddling in Washington, this is a foible that’s clearly bipartisan.  The politically engineered sense of false urgency that’s informed nearly every Obama initiative renders them suspect from the outset and blurs any positive outcome they might otherwise contain. 

Moreover, using economic suffering as a means to hard-wire liberal programs into a budget, which Obama did in the so-called stimulus package earlier this year makes average Americans distrust him when he tells them that our health insurance system must urgently be reformed.

Not unlike an overly complex battle plan whose seeds of defeat are effectively written into the blue print, political strategies predicated on an arrogant assumption of flawless handicapping are doomed to failure.  It’s akin to the perfect crime or the ability to think ten moves ahead in chess—your passion for victory increases linearly with your inability to control outcomes.

As a politician such as Obama builds the platform for his agenda he promptly loses sight of the foundation as he ambitiously gazes skyward.  Early successes inevitably lead to more expansive plans which are erroneously premised on a projected elasticity in the electorate. 

That’s where Obama is at this moment, perched as he is on the left edge of the political spectrum, with the preponderance of the nation becoming more alarmed with his every pronouncement, most prominently, his favored health insurance reform proposals. 

On the foreign policy front, Iran flouted U.S. and ally demands to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear programs by firing several test missiles which could easily reach Israel and even parts of Europe.  Instead of using the tested Bush policy of refusing direct talks with Iran, Obama is providing its rogue leaders with a kind of moral equivalence by countenancing what every analyst knows will be a sham negotiation.

It may take some time, but history will show that Bush’s foreign policy, maligned by liberals who were convinced their erudite State Department-speak would win the day, was founded on a common sense approach to belligerents.  Indeed, whether it’s the Visigoths who sacked Rome in 410 AD, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded Great Britain in the late 4th^h century, the Nazis or Iran's fanatical leaders, their goal is the same:  the annihilation of their enemies and regional—or global—supremacy.

Obama may not be intending to appease our enemies, but that is the inevitable outcome of his current strategy.  He may not appreciate that now, but he will one day.

Beyond broadly outlining their foreign policy goals, all presidents have used their speeches at the United Nations to defend American values and principles.  Paramount among them is our freedom, and its close civic relative, our liberty, which we far too often take for granted.  Yet President Obama’s 5,200 word speech yesterday at the U.N. never mentions the word “liberty,” and never uses the word “freedom” as a cherished value.

If you read the speech several times, the picture that inevitably emerges is one where America anonymously assumes its place among all nations, and where her timeless values of freedom and liberty fall into a passive, silent relief.  In its place, Mr. Obama makes tangentially deprecating references to America’s historical greatness:

No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation.  No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed.

His transparent presupposition is that regardless of two hundred plus years of supporting evidence, the American values of democracy and the rule of law aren’t, in fact, universal principles worthy of exporting to nations suffering under the iron boot of despots. 

Given the millions of people that the United States has emancipated over the past two centuries, you might have thought our founding democratic principles of individual freedom were our most powerful weapons against tyranny.  However, in Mr. Obama’s world view, you would be wrong:

For the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is the hope of human beings -- the belief that the future belongs to those who would build and not destroy; the confidence that conflicts can end and a new day can begin.

There’s an unavoidable civic blandness in the argument that “hope” is our most powerful weapon, and the collateral notion that the future is somehow predestined to belong to those who “build,” not to mention that conflicts can mysteriously “end and a new day can begin.” 

Despite the fact that the answer clearly lies in American exceptionalism, the president’s reticence to invoke it is both an affront to the millions who gave their lives in freedom’s defense and a despicable deference to belligerents flout it by denying their citizens’ fundamental human rights.

A final assault on American sensibilities is Mr. Obama’s statement that “the  interests of nations and peoples are shared.”  It’s a wholly misguided idea and examples abound of oppositional nations whose disparate interests have led to protracted conflict.  Indeed, the interests of the Soviet satellites versus Russia come instantly to mind, but also China whose hegemonic designs on East Asia are at odds with Japan’s interest.

An emerging pattern of nebulous consequences for rogue nations has developed with respect to Obama’s plans for dealing with the palpable threat of a nuclear-armed Iran and the unpredictable, impenetrable regime of Kim Jong Il.  To wit, our president can never be charged with saber rattling with an empty scabbard:

But if the governments of Iran and North Korea choose to ignore international standards; if they put the pursuit of nuclear weapons ahead of regional stability and the security and opportunity of their own people; if they are oblivious to the dangers of escalating nuclear arms races in both East Asia and the Middle East -- then they must be held accountable.

With France and Russia standing to lose the most from a harsh regimen of sanctions, it’s clear that any U.S. led effort to impose them will be for naught.  Of course, Iran’s Ahmadinejad fully understand this, which is why the upcoming talks will signal yet another interminable chapter of Iranian dilatory tactics to ensure its acquisition of a nuclear weapon.

As I argued yesterday, Mr. Obama’s naïve approach to obdurate, renegade regimes seems peculiarly predicated on his solipsistic fantasy that he’s the first leader in history to confront such challenges.  In truth, there’s a lengthy—and growing—list of examples that persuasively demonstrates that the only way to deal with barbaric nations is with the very real threat of military action. 

However, for the exquisitely refined moral compass of the modern liberal, that, of course, is anathema.

Although President Obama is a champion of the fashionable notion that deferential diplomacy is the touchstone of real leadership, history has more than amply demonstrated the naïveté of that approach. 

Leaders of powerful nations who are preoccupied with their standing on the world stage typically use the goal of consensus to justify it. This is little more than diplomatic grandstanding because our true allies will support our broad foreign policy initiatives regardless of U.S. popularity, and those such as China and Russia will exercise their veto in the Security Council despite Obama’s efforts to preen in front of the thugocracy known as the United Nations.

Ever since he announced his candidacy, Obama has emphasized the virtue of a chastised America, that its historical pre-eminence was a myth spun from imperialist and hegemonic dreams, and that his administration would be marked by an apologetic foreign policy. If he hasn’t been faithful to U.S. principles of exceptionalism he has certainly hewed closely to his script of American self-loathing, which has played well among the world’s rogue regimes such as Venezuela and Cuba as well as autocracies such as Russia and China.

Obama’s urbane, cognoscenti parlance, which features a tedious focus on America’s foibles, combined with his fawning gestures of good will towards belligerents, only encourages leaders such as Iran’s Ahmadinejad to conclude that he’s weak. Indeed, Mr. Obama’s decision to abandon the Bush administration’s plan for missile defense in Eastern Europe not only undermines U.S. credibility in the eyes of our allies, it sends the message to our enemies that Russian approval is more important than standing up to Iran.

But, more critically, and as I noted at the outset, this kind of foreign policy has a poor track record of success. It’s clear that the political and strategic weaknesses that evolved over time in the Roman Empire led to its demise. The Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 for the same reason. Although the Thirty Years War led to the Peace of Westphalia—whose major influence was to establish the inviolability of state sovereignty—its origins can be traced to leadership fissures in the Holy Roman Empire as well as the continued Bourbon-Habsburg rivalry, itself a study in perceived strategic vulnerabilities.

Those familiar with Napoleon’s exploits recognize this theme as evidenced by the six coalitions it took to defeat him; and, in the 19^th century, from Crimean War to the Franco-Prussian War, real or perceived opportunities for strategic or geopolitical advantage motivated aggressors. The more familiar 20^th century is a veritable encyclopedia of evidence that the tensions that can spark conflagrations are best kept in check by strong, multilateral treaties backed with the credible threat of military action.

The excerpts made public in advance of Mr. Obama’s U.N. speech today provide compelling evidence that his understanding of history is filtered through a post-modern lens, one that obtusely apologies for American exceptionalism while naively believing that deft diplomacy alone can prevail against our enemies.

It’s never worked, and it never will.

However, this apparently benign development is, in fact, cause for concern, for two reasons. First, Mr. Obama has deftly eliminated the phrase “war on terrorism” from his administration’s lexicon, preferring a euphemism to garner the affection of our allies and not offend our enemies, which is a prototypical preoccupation of liberals. That’s why in the president’s 9/11 remarks you didn’t hear anything about the importance of maintaining our vigilance against the threat of the radical Islamists; instead he emphasized his new national service programs.

That provides the segue to the second point, which is the president’s initiative to fundamentally change the tax deductibility of charitable contributions. Indeed, Mr. Obama’s goal is to significantly reduce the deductibility of charitable contributions, which perfectly dovetails with a commensurate expansion of in national service programs.

To those attentive to the liberal agenda, which is to centralize control within strictly controlled bureaucracies, this move is as predictable as it is hostile to the common good. When charitable donations voluntarily made by individuals are reduced and effectively shifted into control by the government, the president and his liberal friends can target pre-selected groups and services based on a calculus of political worthiness.

One of the major differences between modern liberalism and its ancestors in more distant decades is the distrust of individuals and the correlated need to establish government fiefdoms to ensure that programs are properly funded and are supporting the left’s broader agenda. 

That motivation is clearly evident in President Obama’s dream of nationalized health care, where government bureaucrats would define benefit plans and authorize services based on relative merit, which, of course, is code for rationing.

So as this liberal administration shifts the focus from aggressively defending America against future attacks by Islamic terrorists and seeks to centralize the levers of power, we should be keenly aware of the implications. From a reduction in individual freedoms to an increased risk of another attack on our soil to hobbling our economic recovery, the modern liberal agenda is unambiguously hostile to our nation’s economic and national security.

Since it’s not news that seems to be overwhelming the mainstream media, you might not be aware that Iran has responded to the G-8’s July demand that it begin negotiations over its nuclear program. It has issued a five page document that predictably addresses a variety of extraneous issues while categorically avoiding any discussion of nuclear disarmament.

The premise of President Obama’s approach to dealing with Iran is an effective denial of three decades of diplomatic efforts by the United States and its allies, which has produced nothing beyond frustration and a heightened understanding that Iran is a practiced broker of the art of deception. Indeed, his subsequent attempts to parse his naïve pronouncements concerning direct talks with the leaders of rogue nations notwithstanding, this is a man thoroughly convinced that eloquence and charm will thaw Iran’s decades old intransigence.

Diplomacy, when properly integrated into a broader strategy, one with transparent and credible consequences, can be an effective tool, in particular with nations with a history of willingness to discuss a meaningful reconfiguration of their key relationships. However, the much vaunted strengths of diplomacy have been overplayed in the last century, and its many failures are conveniently overlooked.

Basic diplomatic strategies employ skills and methods designed to leverage oppositional nations to fundamentally realign their understanding of what’s truly in their own self-interest. In the process, so the argument goes, they discover heretofore unrealized incentives proffered by a unified group of nations to modify or eliminate certain undesirable behaviors. 

However, the history of diplomacy confirms that its modest success rate is predicated on a rudimentary set of shared values which, in a prioritized list, must begin with a desire for survival. Unfortunately, in the case of Iran, there’s no evidence that its leaders fear their demise more than their goal of a nuclear weapon. Based on its experience of the last thirty years, that an astute calculus.

Integral to the diplomatic process is a coalition of consensus among the world’s most powerful nations. If the recent demonstrations in Iran clarified anything it’s that those nations are divided on the challenge of confronting Iran’s leaders on the seminal issue of nuclear armament. Indeed, tough talk by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aside, any regimen of sanctions capable of surviving a negotiation in the UN Security Council wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on.

Most analysts believe Iran will have a viable nuclear weapon within twelve calendar months. As Bret Stephens reports in today’s Wall Street Journal, the Bipartisan Policy Center just published a report signed by Sens. Robb and Coats and retired Gen. Charles Ward, stating that Iran could have a weapon within two months. Moreover, Russia has agreed to furnish Iran with a number of S-300 anti-missile batteries which will only hasten any plan by Israel for a pre-emptive strike.

For the first time, the United States will participate in the upcoming talks concerning Iran’s nuclear program, sponsored by the United Nations. This will be Mr. Obama’s first attempt at high-stakes diplomacy with a rogue nation, in stark contrast to former President Bush’s policy of refusing to meet at all. Beyond elevating a barbaric regime in the eyes of the civilized world, there’s only one outcome we can be assured of, and that is an absence of agreement among participants that will plot a trajectory for Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Those who have studied history understand why there wasn’t just one Punic War, but rather three, and how there could ever have been a Hundred Years War (which, in fact, lasted 116 years). The same reasoning can be applied to WWII, which, in contrast to prevailing historical wisdom, was the unnecessary war—not WWI. Indeed, the Treaty of Versailles, which, it should be remembered, the U.S. Senate never ratified, made a repeat of the Great War inevitable.

Iran’s vision of regional dominance is merely a different species in the same genus as the ideological nationalism that underwrote those wars, which is why Mr. Obama’s efforts will be for naught. That, in conjunction with the fact that Iran’s nuclear development time table is working against him, makes his predicament uniquely challenging—and dangerous.