Even Reagan is no Reagan these days

I sense that something…terrible has happened. I wonder what it co-

Yep, that’s it.

President Obama still has a year and a half left in office, so his record remains incomplete and it is far too early to know how he will be regarded by history. But he does have a sufficient record thus far to at least tentatively assess the Reagan comparison. It is not favorable to Obama. To paraphrase former Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s (D-Tex.) famous quip, I never knew Ronald Reagan. But I know enough history to know that Barack Obama is no Ronald Reagan.

On almost every meaningful dimension, when he left the presidency Reagan also left the United States in a better position than when he took office. If present trends continue with Obama, the opposite will be true — America will be much worse off when he leaves office than when he took the inaugural oath on Jan. 20, 2009. Here are just some of the ways that the Reagan-Obama comparison reflects poorly on Obama.

Oh boy! This should be a wild ride!

Negotiations with adversaries

Reagan and Obama have in common a willingness to negotiate with adversaries — but that is where the similarities end. Before Reagan sought to enter negotiations with the Soviet Union, he first worked to strengthen America’s negotiating posture through a combination of a major military build-up and through various asymmetric measures to bring pressure on the Soviets — such as providing arms to the Afghan resistance, support for human rights and dissidents within the USSR, and escalated sanctions on the Soviet economy, particularly energy exports. In contrast, Obama has weakened the American position towards Iran by withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq, slashing the Pentagon budget, disparaging the military option so much that the Iranians know he would never use force, and ignoring rather than supporting Iranian dissidents.

The elevation of Iran to a level with the Cold War-era Soviet Union actually might be the least ignorant thing in this piece, and that’s saying something. Yes, I know it’s accepted dogma that Reagan parachuted into Red Square to force Gorbachev to surrender, and later, after his presidency ended, personally tore down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands, but I don’t even have to argue with that myth to point out that Iran ain’t the USSR and it ain’t 1985 anymore.

Additionally, Reagan was always willing to walk away from a bad deal — and even to walk away from a “good deal” if he thought it meant too many concessions by the United States, such as his refusal to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative at Reykjavik.

Good thing he did that, too, or else we wouldn’t have SDI keeping us safe today.

Defense

Reagan engineered a remarkable turnaround at the Pentagon, substantially increasing the defense budget, leading the design and procurement of revolutionary new weapons platforms, and restoring confidence in the previously demoralized American military. Obama, in contrast, has engineered such severe cuts to the Pentagon that all four of his defense secretaries have warned with growing alarm about the risks of a hollowed-out military.

Defense spending is higher now in inflation-adjusted terms than it was under Reagan and has been pretty much since 9/11, particularly if you include war spending. The idea that we’re pauperizing the military is absurd, period.

Democratization and freedom

Reagan pursued a deliberate strategy of supporting freedom movements worldwide, with both American allies and adversaries. This led to a substantial increase in human liberty, not just when the Iron Curtain fell, but also in Asia and Latin America as countries such as the South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Chile all underwent democratic transitions partly as a result of Reagan administration policies. Whereas on President Obama’s watch, America’s support for human rights and democracy has shriveled, and global democratization has eroded every year he has been in office.

Ronald Reagan supported brutally repressive regimes in the Philippines, Panama, Zaire, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, and Iraq, and that’s just off the top of my head. Oh, plus apartheid South Africa. He financed the right wing Contra rebels in Nicaragua, whose human rights abuses were legion. He’s not particularly well-remembered in Central America. He supported “freedom movements” when they happened to make trouble for regimes that were allied with the Soviets, period.

Geopolitical standing and national security

Reagan left office with America’s global standing substantially improved. On his watch, America became stronger, safer, and more secure. Our primary peer competitor, the Soviet Union, was on its way to extinction, other threats to our security were diminished, and the United States was poised to become the dominant global superpower. In regrettable contrast, under Obama the threat of jihadist terrorism has proliferated, irresponsibly conducted withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan are looking more and more like defeats, great power competitors Russia and China have increased in strength and influence, and a dubious Iran deal threatens to embolden an American adversary and unleash a nuclear proliferation cascade in the world’s most volatile region. Given this record, it is sad but telling that President Obama envisions one of his most significant geopolitical legacies to be embracing a backwards Caribbean nation ruled by a pair of unrepentant Communists. (Obama’s hoped-for visit to Havana to have a cigar with Raul Castro is hardly the stuff of Reagan standing at the Brandenburg Gate calling for Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.) If present trends continue to January 2017, Obama will leave America weaker, less safe, and less secure.

I assume, since Will Inboden and I are living on the same planet in the same quantum dimension, that he’s talking about the same Reagan who sold weapons to Iran, helped Saddam Hussein obtain and use chemical weapons (WMD, Jerry!), and helped fund the folks who would later go on to form the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Gosh, all of those things certainly did make American safer, I guess, somehow. Reagan also pulled out of Lebanon after the 1983 bombing of a Marine barracks in Beirut killed 241 US service members. That may not seem like a big deal, but it sure was to Osama bin Laden, who would later claim that the withdrawal, and the image it left of the US as a paper tiger that could be chased away, influenced his decision to attack the United States.

Reagan’s two terms in office also brought us the AIDS epidemic (with little federal government response), the serial demonizing of poor people, and massive increases in the budget deficit, but who’s counting?

I come not to disparage Ronald Reagan (well, maybe a little), but to point out that the perfect, legendary “Ronald Reagan” that people like Will Inboden have crafted in their imaginations with the benefit of ~30 years in the rear view isn’t any more historical than Hercules or Cthulhu. Even the actual, physical Ronald Reagan, who really lived and was President of the United States from 1981-1989, couldn’t possibly live up to the delusion that these folks have concocted for themselves.

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