Stories by Tod Lindberg
His Reelection Plan
Things Trump is likely to succeed at
Dec 05, 2016
To those who believed, sequentially, that Donald Trump would drop out soon after entering the GOP primary field; that this or that outrageous provocation of his would fatally turn off primary voters; that while he might be winning primaries, he had a ceiling of support among Republicans in the 40-percent range through which he could never pass; that he would never win a majority of delegates to the convention; that if he did, the party establishment would do its utmost to deny him the nomination Read more
Valor and Victimhood After September 11
From the March 4, 2002, issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
8:25 AM, Sep 10, 2016
There are no more yellow ribbons. For more than 20 years, in times of travail, the yellow ribbons have come out. The Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80 called forth a nationwide flowering of yellow ribbons. And at one time or another since then—can this really all have been wrought by Tony Orlando and Dawn singing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree"?—the yellow ribbon has been pressed into service as a symbol of hope amid adversity, an expression of longing for the return of those who ar Read more
Who's the Greatest?
An exceptional election about exceptionalism.
Sep 12, 2016
One noteworthy feature of the ideological divide in Washington is how immune the country’s foreign policy practitioners have been from the disfiguring aspects of hyper-partisanship. Take any random left-wing specialist in constitutional law and a counterpart from the Federalist Society, and odds are they will believe they have little to say to or learn from each other. Something similar holds on questions of inequality and the tax code, and on social issues, if any of those are left to argue abo Read more
Our Heroes, Ourselves
A revealing evolution in our highest military honor.
Nov 16, 2015
At a White House ceremony on November 12, President Obama will award the Medal of Honor to retired Army captain Florent Groberg. When the president fastens the medal’s light-blue ribbon behind Groberg’s neck, Obama will be doing more than honoring a single American hero. He will be reaffirming what has become a national commitment to honor a distinctive kind of heroism. Groberg, like other recent recipients of the nation’s highest military honor, risked his life to save the lives of others. G Read more
The Heroes Hidden Among Us
6:01 AM, Oct 05, 2015
Nothing can redeem the harrowing massacre that unfolded last week at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. But something does enter on the positive side of the ledger: A genuine American hero revealed himself that day. Chris Mintz’s biography seems to fit the profile of a student enrolled in community college. He’d finished high school, done a stint in the army, worked at Walmart among a series of unremarkable jobs. He fought mixed martial arts and was going to school because he wanted to becom Read more
The Answer to ‘Hybrid Warfare’
Arrest (or shoot) those little green men.
May 18, 2015
It’s an especially tense time for the Baltic states and Russia’s other Western-leaning neighbors. Wariness with regard to Vladimir Putin and long-term Russian intentions toward the “near abroad” has long been the norm here, well before the 2007 cyberattack on Estonia and Russian military action against Georgia in 2008. But with the annexation of Crimea and military intervention in eastern Ukraine, general wariness has given way to focused concern about the new threat Russia poses. Call it “hy Read more
Japan’s Tense Neighborhood
China talks about a ‘peaceful rise,’ even as it probes for weakness.
Apr 06, 2015
Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan Japan's Air Self-Defense Force base on Okinawa shares a runway with the civilian planes on this island about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo. When the American-made Japanese F-15s scramble, as they often do these days, the civilian traffic awaiting takeoff pulls over to a side taxiway. It must be a pretty decent air show for those with a window seat. The F-15s scramble in pairs, perhaps a minute apart. Two flights of two roared off as I watched from a balcony a Read more
Maybe the Center Can Hold
2014 and all that.
Oct 13, 2014
There seems little doubt that 2014 will go down as a truly horrible year for American foreign policy. From the Russian seizure of Crimea and further irregular incursions into eastern Ukraine, to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, to a worsening security problem in Afghanistan ahead of an anticipated U.S. drawdown, to the rise of fringe political parties in Europe, to Iran’s onward march to a nuclear capability, to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa—combined with an American public portrayed by p Read more
Russia as a Regional Power
Has Obama given up on Putin? Let’s hope so.
May 12, 2014
It's hard to look on the bright side of the dismemberment of a sovereign state by force of arms. But because of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the ongoing threat Vladimir Putin intends to pose to eastern Ukraine, the Obama administration must now face international reality free of one of its more cherished illusions: that Russia is a partner in the pursuit of commonly desired outcomes. Obama scoffed mightily in his reelection debate with Mitt Romney when the GOP candidate described Russia Read more
Crimea and Punishment
Time for another Russia reset.
Mar 31, 2014
It's time for a reset for U.S. policy toward Russia. The original Obama reset has now run its course, and President Vladimir Putin has thoroughly dashed all hope of Russia emerging as a partner of the United States and a constructive contributor to a liberal international order. The armed takeover and annexation of Crimea and the threat of further military incursion into eastern Ukraine have established beyond doubt that the United States needs to approach Russia first and foremost as a security Read more
Unhappy Allies
Obama annoys Europe.
Dec 30, 2013
Apparently relations between the United States and Europe are actually maturing. How else to account for the singular absence of transatlantic crisis-mongering over the many, many ways in which the Obama administration has annoyed our allies in Europe? Obama sycophancy, you say? The stenographic response to the official administration line among what Matthew Continetti has dubbed a “secretarial” (as opposed to adversarial) press corps? Well, maybe that too. Say George W. Bush were president. Read more
Maxilateral Man
Obama’s essence.
Sep 23, 2013
With his Syria policy careening from inaction to the threat of force to a request for congressional approval to a diplomatic bailout from Russia, the long-vexing puzzle of what makes Barack Obama tick has again come to the fore. About most presidents, it’s possible to put together a sentence or two that plausibly describes their view of the world and where they sought to take the country. Reagan wanted to rebuild American strength and unleash economic growth at home. The Cold War over, George Read more
A Bear in the Desert
Why did the Obama administration allow a Russian resurgence in the Middle East?
Jul 01, 2013
For decades during the Cold War, U.S. policy sought to minimize the role of Moscow in the Middle East. As the Soviet Union weakened dramatically in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so too did its capacity to influence events there (and many other places besides). So matters have stood since. A pretty good question, then, is why on earth the Obama administration seems to be inviting a Russian resurgence in the Middle East. The first-term Obama initiative to “reset” relations with Russia was prob Read more
The Other Benghazi Scandal
Did we really do all we could have to respond to the attack?
Jun 03, 2013
The complexity of Washington scandals as they unfold usually involves many moments at which it is possible to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Two such instances have come into sharper relief in recent weeks. One is that we still have no good explanation for U.N. ambassador Susan Rice’s talking points for her round of talk show appearances the Sunday after the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. A second is that focusing on the question of whether the loss of four Read more
How to Prevent Atrocities
There’s no substitute for presidential leadership
Mar 11, 2013
In August 2011, about five months after Bashar al-Assad ordered the Syrian military to fire on unarmed demonstrators, President Obama issued his “Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities.” PSD-10 instructed the executive branch to create an interagency group called the Atrocities Prevention Board, with senior representatives from the White House, all major cabinet departments, the military, foreign assistance and trade bureaus, and the intelligence community. The APB’s mission would be “t Read more
GOP Chaos on Capitol Hill?
Not really.
Jan 14, 2013
Perhaps the least surprising headline in the aftermath of the tax deal last week was the one in Politico declaring that congressional Democrats are planning to run against “chaos” in the 2014 midterm elections. It’s unsurprising because Democrats have been working, with considerable success, to establish the proposition that Washington is dysfunctional because of the GOP. Republicans, for their part, have contributed to the storyline through their own internal divisions. But political parti Read more
The Once and Future Liberal
Obama runs as the progressive that he is.
May 21, 2012
Much of the loyal opposition’s response to President Obama’s new position in favor of gay marriage centered on the back-and-forth in which he has indulged over the years getting to it. He was for it; he was against it; now he’s for it again (not that he apparently proposes to do anything to advance the cause beyond his “historic” expression of personal support). In short, the “evolved” presidential view is of the genus “political cynicism”: On the eve of a major Hollywood fundraiser (and, hmm, a Read more
A Model Intervention
Has the Libya precedent paralyzed the Obama administration on Syria?
Apr 02, 2012
The U.S. ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, and NATO’s top military commander, U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, took to the pages of the latest Foreign Affairs for an unusual but deserved victory lap over the campaign that led to the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. It was, the two argued, “a model intervention.” They are right, it was. But with the carnage continuing in Homs and elsewhere as the Bashar al-Assad regime tries to crush the popular uprising threatening his hold on Syria, it Read more
The Coming Attack on Iran
When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something’s gotta give.
Feb 20, 2012
The United States and Iran have been on a collision course since the Iranian revolution in 1979, when elements of the newly proclaimed Islamic Republic took U.S. diplomats and Tehran embassy personnel hostage. U.S. relations with Iran have been bad ever since. The focus in recent years has been the Iranian program to develop a nuclear weapon, but the backdrop is Iran as a growing regional threat, not only to Israel and to U.S. and allied interests in the Persian Gulf region, but also to the many Read more
The Bain of His Campaign
Could inflict considerable pain.
Jan 23, 2012
Question: Why would GOP candidates vying to establish themselves as the “conservative alternative” to Mitt Romney attack the one-time financier for his robust practice of free-market economics, layoffs included, during his years at Bain Capital? Answer: Well, because he is vulnerable on that point. Let us put aside high principle and deep conviction long enough to observe that running for president usually entails an ambitious disposition. Although people occasionally run for some other reaso Read more
From Hero-Worship to Celebrity-Adulation
The problem of greatness in an age of equality.
Oct 10, 2011
In the mid-19th century, the Scottish man of letters Thomas Carlyle coined the term “Hero-worship,” by which he meant the high regard, entirely proper in his view, that ordinary people have for the great figures of their history. His project in Lectures on Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) was to restore greatness to dignity in an age he believed had come to belittle the very possibility of exceptional human achievement. Carlyle claimed, on the contrary, “Universal History Read more
Unfinished Business
Where’s the Lockerbie bomber?
Sep 05, 2011
Without doubt, the center ring under the big top in Libya is the act of deposing a brutal dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, whose long record of depredation includes the deaths of hundreds of Americans in acts of terrorism great and small. There is a sideshow not to be missed, however. It concerns the fate of Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted terrorist released to Libya from a Scottish prison two years ago supposedly on the “compassionate” grounds that his terminal prostate cancer left him wit Read more
The New California
In Republican politics, it’s Texas.
Aug 29, 2011
Whether he wins the nomination or not, Rick Perry’s August charge into the top echelon of GOP presidential hopefuls marks at least this turning point: In national Republican politics, Texas is the new California. Back in the day—say, the 1960s through the 1990s—California was the jumping-off point par excellence in making a bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The reasons were both obvious and subtle: With a population topping 37 million, the state is the nation’s largest. Since Read more
Obama in the Abstract
Spokesman for the ‘international community.’
Jun 06, 2011
Let’s assume that it was not President Obama’s intention for the final section of his big Mideast speech, in which he took up the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to entirely overwhelm everything he had just said in support of democratization and the “universal rights” of those living in the region. Of course, that’s exactly what happened when the fateful words “1967 lines” passed his lips. Nor is it inconceivable that Obama—after taking a large (if unacknowledged) step in the d Read more
Budget Gamesmanship
The Republicans are winning the deficit debate.
Apr 25, 2011
There’s a truism of budgeting that goes: The player who makes the first move always loses. That’s because the player with the second move has the opportunity to focus on the drawbacks of what the first player proposed. It’s one reason why some Republicans were nervous about House GOP budget chairman Paul Ryan’s determination to release a detailed, long-range proposal to curb spending, including cost-cutting reforms to major entitlement programs. Here was an opening for Obama to counter—as he did Read more
The U.N. Effect
Obama’s quest for ‘international legitimacy’ makes for a dishonest Libya policy
Apr 11, 2011
For those who care about “international legitimacy,” the gold standard is a United Nations Security Council resolution. The Obama foreign policy team as a whole has been obsessed with legitimacy since the White House was merely a gleam in the eye of the junior senator from Illinois. Indeed, the administration’s sense of amour propre is grounded in no small measure in feelings of superiority about its care for and cultivation of legitimacy, especially in contrast with its cowboy-unilateralist p Read more
The Do-Nothing President
The Republicans’ surprising new critique of Obama.
Mar 14, 2011
In his underdog bid to retain the presidency in 1948, Harry Truman ran hard against the “Do-Nothing Congress,” so much so that his put-down of the Republicans who controlled Capitol Hill became a permanent part of the political lexicon, far more resonant today than anything Truman ever said about his Republican opponent for the White House, Thomas Dewey. Since a Democrat is once again in the Oval Office facing down a GOP-controlled House, some have broached the possibility of Barack Obama’s d Read more
Free at Last
Obama enjoys life after Pelosi.
Jan 31, 2011
Maybe we’re just more used to changes in control of the House of Representatives than we were in 1994. Bill Clinton seemed to spend months knocked back on his heels after the Democratic defeat that November. But Barack Obama has not exactly been reeling. If anything, he seems to have found his lost groove. He’s getting deals done (on taxes, arms control, gays in the military). He’s garnering praise from Republicans, of all people (for the tax deal, for dropping his 2011 withdrawal timetable Read more
Speaking Truth to Mullah Power
At a conclave of big shots, Lindsey Graham steals the show.
Nov 22, 2010
Halifax, Nova Scotia On a dangerously windy early November afternoon, a military plane carrying a delegation of six U.S. senators made four successive approaches attempting to land at Halifax airport before giving up and turning around. Rather than heading for home, though, the plane landed in Bangor, Maine, where senators and staff overnighted before trying Halifax again, this time successfully, early the next morning. There was, then, a certain determination in their effort to get to th Read more
President McCain at Midterm
What if . . .
Nov 08, 2010
No, this is not going to be a full-blown exercise in the fiction genre of Alternative History: A minor adviser to the 2008 McCain presidential campaign chronicles the day-to-day ups and downs of the two eventful years following the American people’s reluctant conclusion that they don’t know a blessed thing about Barack Obama and want something a little more reliable than “hope and change.” We’ll leave that to Harry “ Guns of the South ” Turtledove—the master of the genre. While we will be engagi Read more