Bret Stephens is a bundle of contradictions. On domestic issues, he is a CL; he has never seen a tax he didn’t want to cut, or a regulation he didn’t want to repeal. Issues which lack any kind of plausible rugged individualist solution, such as climate change, simply don’t exist for him. On foreign affairs, on the other hand, Stephens is a super-hawk, willing to run any risk and pay any price to support American domination of the entire world. As a result, he advocates the following:
- He thinks Biden needs to do whatever it takes to guarantee a quick victory for Ukraine over Russia. Given the Russians’ enormous advantages in manpower and equipment, that can only mean NATO airstrikes on Russian positions in Ukraine. In other words, he wants NATO to declare war on Russia, and risk nuclear war.
- At the same time, he wants Biden to walk away from the Iran nuclear talks and put the fear of God in the Iranian leadership. That means threatening war, and presumably following through, if necessary, as we have no further economic levers at hand.
- Finally, he wants to take a more aggressive stand with China over Taiwan, which could also lead to war.
Three wars at once! That’s rather a lot, don’t you think?