Pascal Bruckner --> reviewed by Brian C. Anderson -->

Shortly after taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama declared America’s need to “restore” good relations with Muslims, forging a new way forward “based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Many critics, including the columnist Charles Krauthammer, read the president’s comments as an unwarranted apology for American actions in the struggle against Islamic radicalism. The United States was at least partly to blame for the Islamic world’s anger, Obama seemed to imply; the rage and threats of obliteration directed at Americans, the death-dealing terror—our actions must have provoked them. When President Obama later bowed before the Saudi King Abdullah (among other...

 
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