By David Keene – The Washington Times
Not long ago, reporters asked White House spokesman Jay Carney to react to Iran’s new “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani’s tweet that as a result of his negotiations with the United States, “world powers surrendered to Iran’s national will.”
Mr. Carney, speaking for the Obama administration, had an answer, “It doesn’t matter what they say. It matters what they do.”
In the context of world affairs, U.S. politicians have often made the mistake of assuming our adversaries don’t really mean what they say. We like to think that, in their hearts, they share our values and concerns.
In the 1930s, when Adolf Hitler talked about Jews and what should be done with them, Western leaders discounted his words as empty rhetoric.
When the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev thundered in the 1960s, “We will bury you,” U.S. politicians concluded he was posturing for domestic reasons and didn’t mean it.
Today, when extremist Middle Eastern leaders suggest that Israel should be destroyed, we comfort ourselves in the belief that they don’t really mean it.