Rush Limbaugh delivered commentary on U.S. foreign policy and the nation’s superpower status on the Wednesday broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program.
RUSH: Folks, we have just in the last — ah, you could say two days, the last week, we have had demonstrated for us one of life’s most basic lessons. And I want to try to explain this. I gotta tell you, I was so frustrated watching television last night as the Iranians launched their little puddle jumper missiles. I’m watching, I don’t care what channel I turned to, not even gonna mention them. All the networks, they’re acting scared, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Iran’s launched, oh, my God. We pray for American servicemen.”
Where is this attitude? Where does it come from? This is the opening here of life’s lesson. This attitude that we somehow are helpless, that we’re overmatched, that we’re overpowered. “Oh, no. What have we done now? Oh, my God. Look at what the Iranians are doing.” What did Iranians do? Nothing!
The minute I heard last night that the Iranians tipped us off that the missiles were coming, it was plain as day, Trump wins. They did this as a show of face-saving for other Arabs and Persians in the region, but they didn’t dare, they didn’t dare want to injure a single American. They launched the missiles into sand. They didn’t even use laser-guided missiles. They used ballistic missiles. I think four of the 12 didn’t even make the full run. Didn’t survive.
This country, for too long, has had a foreign policy that is rooted in the notion that we provoke the rest of the world, that we are the problem, that we’re not the solution, and that it is our superpower status that is the problem. We’re too powerful. It isn’t fair. We’re too big. It isn’t fair. And the rest of the world hates us because of that. None of that is true.
And yet that is the exact kind of thinking that guided the Obama administration. It’s the exact kind of thinking that gave us Madeleine Albright, the same kind of thinking that gave us the Obama nuclear deal. Inside of a week — well, inside of a couple of months, the United States, Donald Trump, has taken out two of the world’s most active and prolific merchants of death, al-Baghdadi and Qassem Soleimani, both dead.
It did not require a massive invasion. It did not require years to do. Inside of basically a short period of time, one of the greatest gifts to the civilized world has been given: two monsters eliminated. It did not take a land war. It did not cost thousands of lives. It needs to be celebrated, and the awesome ability to project power, the United States, is recognized by our enemies, if not by many Americans.
The Iranians, I told you yesterday, the Iranians know they will be wiped out with Donald Trump if they behave as they have in the past. Trump in his speech today made a point of how big our missiles are. We got big missiles. Our missiles are bigger than yours, and they’re more numerous than yours. He also made a point that the missiles fired last night were paid for with the cash delivered to the Tehran airport “by my predecessor.” That would be Barack Obama.
He’s exactly right. I’m gonna charitable with Obama. And I’m not gonna accuse Obama of having anti-American interests and pro-Middle Eastern interests. I think Obama is like many of the American left today who really think that the world’s unfair because the United States is so big. That we’re the problem and that appeasement is the only way to get along with people. Show them we mean them no harm, show them we love them, show them that we recognize that we are the provocateurs and, trust us, we don’t want to hurt you.
What does that do? It just encourages them to continue to be exactly who they are. Along comes Donald Trump, and inside of a week has sent the exact opposite message to the Middle East, to NATO, to the rest of the world that the United States doesn’t consider itself the problem anymore. The United States doesn’t consider itself the provocateur. The United States is not gonna apologize for what we are. The United States not gonna apologize for what we’ve done. We’re not gonna apologize for what we have.
We are going to protect what we have. We are going to grow what we have because we’re the good guys, and we are the agents of positive change for anybody in the world that wants to join us. And anybody that stands in our way and kills Americans is not going to get away with it. Folks, this has not been American foreign policy for a long time. The reason this is such a standout is because it is so unusual.
We’ve never had an American president in a national television address, like Trump just did, tell the truth about Iran. It’s never happened because we have been guided by previous administrations for decades, with a few exceptions, that appeasement is the only way to peace, that acting as big as we are, acting confident about who we are is unnecessarily provocative.
If you think I’m making this up, let me give you an example that I remember off the top of my head. During the Obama administration, some delegation from the ChiComs was in town, and we started some… The Obama State Department started talking to the ChiCom members of this delegation about their human rights abuses. The ChiCom guy said, “Wait a minute! You’ve got no right telling us about human rights abuses. Look at your past.”
And the Obama guy said, “Oops! You know what? You’re right. We have no right to tell you about human rights abuses because we are just as guilty as you are.” So even though we do have the moral authority — particularly compared to any communist nation, we have the moral authority — to preach, the Obama administration gave it away because of the belief that we don’t have this right, that we don’t have this moral authority or superiority.
So the United States, with Obama and with previous administrations, really didn’t want to use its goodness and its decency and its power because it was all considered, ah, maybe illegitimate or unjust or provocative or what have you. The life lesson here: A show of force — a willingness to be honest about what you say you will do when everybody knows you have the ability to do what you do — is the way to use power for the good, to use power for positive outcomes and results. There’s no reason for the United States to apologize.
There’s no reason for the United States to feel guilty. There is no reason for the United States or its people to feel frightened over these kinds of things. The Iranians? Folks, if it is true — and it is. I saw it last night. The Iranians tipped us off. They tipped off the Iraqis, and the Iraqis tipped us off that the missiles were coming. It’s the surest sign that taking out the number two terrorist in the world was a positive. It was a big win.
It was not an escalation, as the media and the Democrats attempted to say. It was not endangering us further. This is why I got so frustrated watching television last might. It didn’t matter where I went. We know… The Iranians don’t even have HDTV! The video they gave us of their missile launches was cheap, SD quality, and they kept looping it and looping it, and it made it look like the Iranians were launching thousands, hundreds of missiles (sobbing), “And we had no chance!
“Oh, my God! (hyperventilating) We’re praying. We’re hoping tonight that there are no casualties! We don’t know…” Everybody was so convinced that it was gonna end badly for us. Everybody was so convinced that the Iranians — Pfft! — we were no match for ’em, and I’m just sick of this attitude. I’m tired of it. I’ve had to endure this. It’s the attitude of the American State Department, many previous administrations. It’s the attitude of the deep state. All these people that showed up and testified against Trump?
This is the stuff they really oppose: Using America’s power for good. This is what they don’t like. They’re a bunch of appeasers that want to show up and just continue the process of never solving anything while getting accolades for great diplomacy. Well, we just saw the best diplomacy that there is.
Posted By Ian Schwartz
On Date January 10, 2020
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