Mark Steyn: An unstable truce with the Axis of Crazy

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Orange County Register:

Published: March 15, 2013 Updated: March 16, 2013 9:35 a.m.

Mark Steyn: An unstable truce with the Axis of Crazy

By MARK STEYN

 

Syndicated columnist

letters@ocregister.com

Meanwhile, back at the GOP, Sen. Rand Paul is no Dick Cheney, either: At CPAC this week, the narrow bounds of his smash-hit filibuster – questioning drone assassinations of Americans in America – broadened somewhat, not just to questioning drone assassinations of Americans anywhere, nor to questioning drone assassinations of anyone, nor even to questioning the "war on terror" or war in general, but to questioning the very assumptions of American global order, starting with our bankrolling of Mohamed Morsi in Cairo. The Egyptians send mobs to torch the U.S. embassy, the Saudis wage ideological warfare against Western civilization, the Turks call Israel a "crime against humanity" and threaten a cultural and demographic takeover of Europe, the Pakistanis are ramping up nuke production to sell to any loon in town – and those are just our "allies." With friends like these, who needs foreign policy? There are fewer and fewer takers for the burdens of global superpower, and whoever wins the nomination in 2016 will be considerably less Cheney and more Randy.

 

And, to be fair, even Dick Cheney isn't Dick Cheney, at least in the sense that Dick Cheney isn't Darth Vader. After a decade of inconclusive war, Americans are understandably receptive to the notion that it's time to "come home." Thus, newly appointed Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel faces, in the words of the Associated Press, "the jarring difficulties of shutting down a war in a country still racked by violence." "Shutting down"? Yes, the Defense Secretary