The Weekly Treat from Victor Davis Hanson

Each week, I eagerly await Victor Davis Hanson's column at National Review On-Line . This week he has some exceptionally good advice for the Bush administration.

South America
During the recent 34-nation Summit of the Americas, President Bush was meet with hostile crowds and a critical press. In light of the current anti-Americanism promoted by Hugo Chavez with Venezuelan petro dollars, VDH thinks the following Presidential statement is in order:

Unfortunately at a time of trade imbalances, budget deficits, and security concerns, the United States regrets that it must consider first the interests of its own small businesses and workers. So sadly it must maintain or increase its protection of the domestic American market, restrict the remittances of illegal aliens back to Latin America, and close our borders to the entry of all illegal aliens from the south.

Spain
In regard to the Spanish High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz issuing international arrest warrants for three American soldiers charging them with murder in the accidental death of a Spanish cameraman at the Baghdad's Palestine Hotel on April 8, 2003. VDH asks would it not be be better if the Spanish government simply asked the United States to remove its thousands of soldiers from Spanish soil and

allow the defense of Spain to become a Spanish matter? Most Americans and Spanish alike would welcome the idea — perhaps the former far more than the latter.

Iran
...as its so-called president suggested, it might wish to wipe out Israel — either on the frightening premise it could survive such an Armageddon and Israel would not, or on the lunatic assumption that it was willing to go to a collective paradise, martyring itself to end once and for all the Zionist plague.

In response, perhaps the United States should declare something like the following:

Iran's nuclear ambitions are both an internal and regional matter that properly fall under the auspices of the U.N., EU, and Arab League. Our own strategies — missile defense and massive nuclear response to any attack — are designed to protect the United States and its allies; but we certainly would not wish to prejudice alternative avenues of national or global approaches undertaken by others, and most definitely do not wish to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran.

VDH has prescribed strong medicine, we need to take it. He goes on to say:

But for right now, the United States might benefit by not welcoming any additional free and unfair trade with South America, or spending billions on European defense, or taking on any more burdens in the Middle East.

In contrast, an India, Japan, and Australia are proud and confident nations. They don't indict our citizens and often appreciate an American global role, whether outsourcing jobs or patrolling regional waters. Unlike the U.N., the EU, and South America, they spare us the sanctimonious lectures and look forward rather than nurse wounds of the past.

The world is changing as we speak. The great untold story of our age is that others need to get a life and the United States needs to move on.

I hope someone is the Bush administration is reading Victor Davis Hanson's columns.