Yaron Brook

Though America is undoubtedly more politically polarized than ever, the view that the War in Iraq was a fiasco is something that almost everyone outside of think tanks or the military industrial complex can agree on. For those familiar with the works of paleocons like Pat Buchanan and Paul Gottfried, the idea that the war was a gross waste of American lives and treasure is a recurring theme. That many neocons remain unrepentant (and unaccountable) is not surprising. What may perhaps surprise the reader is that there are some intellectuals who believe the problem with our intervention is that we didn’t go far enough.

Yaron Brook is an Israeli-American who writes for The Objective Standard, a kind of Randian objectivist/rational egoist outlet that makes Bill Kristol’s The Weekly Standard look reasonable. In “‘Just War Theory’ versus American Self-Defense” Brook wastes no time in getting to the heart of the matter when he informs the audience (the piece is adapted from a talk) that in order for the US to win decisively in the Middle East it would have been necessary to “inflict suffering on complicit civilian populations” deliberately.

His models for what should have been done in Iraq include the Allied attacks on Japanese and German cities, which he acknowledges killed “hundreds of thousands.” Brook even approvingly quotes Winston Churchill, who wrote “the severe ruthless bombing of Germany on an ever-increasing scale will not only cripple her war effort…but will create conditions intolerable to the mass of the German population.”

Apparently, the threat of what Brook calls “Islamic Totalitarianism” is to be dealt with in the same way as “the Nazi and Japanese imperialist threats,” which were in no small part resolved by “America’s dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan.” Read more

How will Obama be viewed historically? The obvious answer is: in two completely different ways. First, he is now, has been, and will be remembered as one of our greatest, most consequential presidents … by the far left “Mainstream” Media who have uncritically supported him all along. According to a recent CNN broadcast, Obama’s leading accomplishments are “comprehensive healthcare, the rescue of the global economy, the historic deal with Iran to halt that nation’s march towards a nuclear weapon, the global climate change agreements, the appointment of two women to the U.S. Supreme Court, and his moves on social issues such as marriage equality for gay Americans, equal pay legislation, criminal justice reform, and more.”

The second answer is not so generous. We have decided to present our evaluation in a three-part series covering:

1. Foreign Policy
2. Economic Legacy
3. Race Relations

Part 1 focuses on some of the key failures of Obama’s foreign policy that led to the Trump victory in November, principally the passivity of his policy in the Middle East and his championing of the globalist cause of open borders.

Part 1: Foreign Policy

Those who would claim that Obama is one of our greatest presidents are the same folks who have been selling the story that Trump is the new Hitler. Presumably, they believe that in February 2017 Trump will begin rounding up 6 million Muslims and sending them to camps to be executed, much like the US did after Pearl Harbor with Japanese-Americans. What? We did not send 6 million Japanese-Americans to death camps in California? Mea culpa, but it’s hard to keep pace with the revisionist propaganda being taught in our schools and colleges. Read more