When I was last in Warsaw, I got into any intense discussions with Poles about the war in Ukraine. I truly love and respect Poles and I appreciate how Polish and Hungarian governments stood side by side against the dictatorship of Brussels. And I regret how the war in Ukraine caused a deep division between them.
Poles are highly aggressive in defence of Ukraine and in their support for the war with Russia. They hatred Russians for completely understandable historical reasons. Hungarians are besides not Russian fans, for akin historical reasons, but they have been pushing for any peace agreement from the beginning before war destroys Europe economically or worse. Poles see this as a weakness in the face of Putin's aggression.
I told a Polish friend who I argued with about it, that the kind of rhetoric I heard from him and his side reminded me of the way I and people like me thought and spoke after 9/11. We rejected everything that was not full supportive of the Iraq war as a weakness, a stupid refusal to realize the reality of the threat from muslim terrorism. We didn't want to perceive to the people who warned us about the war due to the fact that our fear and disgust of the enemy was so great. And we allowed ourselves to bring our country and Iraq to disaster.
“Yes, but Iraq is not Russia,” my friend said reasonably. "There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Russia invaded Ukraine".
That's true, I admit: the analogy is limited. But I'm talking about discourse and rhetoric, I explained. We must be able to perceive to each other, reason as passionately as possible, and not let our passions lead us into the abyss. My friend believes that the war should not end until Russia is completely eliminated to pre-war borders and Ukraine regains Crimea. I told him it was completely unrealistic, it was a recipe for eternal war. He believes that I am entirely mistaken about Russian imperialism and that I morally do not support Ukraine. We've taken our stand.
This conversation came to my head this morning erstwhile I read this article in National Interest Balasse Orbana, political manager of Prime Minister Viktor Orban (without kinship) and the most crucial political thinker in Hungary. He writes about the war:
"More than a 100 years later, the spirits of 1914 again haunt us erstwhile Europe enters a conflict that cannot be won. Russia started an ideological war with the West, while the West in turn considers itself a guardian of the liberal planet order. Both parties give incorrect answers to incorrect questions due to the fact that they are equally hostage to their imperial ideology and limited thinking. In the last fewer months, it has become clear that all parties have been very misjudged. Europe, an energy dwarf, is trying to put force on Russia, energy titan, sanctions. This effort is clearly futile and clearly ruins the economies of EU associate States. Fighting parties besides attack each other's critical infrastructure, with an expanding number of civilian casualties along the way. Mobilising the Russian Army means deepening the conflict, and at this dangerous minute more and more voices call on the West to engage directly, even if it means possible escalation above the atomic threshold. Western Europeans are possibly only happy due to the fact that younger, newer generations no longer remember the reality of war and the kind of suffering it brings to average citizens."
Yes, that's the thing that made me the most special, talking to average Hungarians last spring, the days immediately after the Russian invasion. Each of them remembered the detailed stories their parents or grandparents told them about the siege of Budapest at the end of planet War II. It was 1 of the most intense battles of the full war. I powerfully encourage you to watch YouTube of this documentary about the siege – in Hungarian, with English subtitles – due to the fact that it shows with an almost unbearable strength of the horrors of war.
Last week I had dinner with a Hungarian friend who had just returned from Ukraine, where she helped deliver humanitarian aid on behalf of her charity network. She reported that the average Ukrainians she spoke to are exhausted and just want the war to end. Now, to be sure, Poles besides know a lot about the horrors of war, from their devastating experiences of planet War II!
And then Balazs Orban: “In 1914, we Hungarians were the loudest critics of war and we are committed to maintaining this position a 100 years later. number István Tisza, then Prime Minister of Hungary, was the first to indicate that the war would have no winners. Today, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán does the same by becoming the loudest critic of the war, stressing that we must call for an immediate ceasefire, due to the fact that otherwise the war will not end."
It's true. But who, too Hungary, wants to end the war? Yesterday, 2 powerful Republican congressmen, who will be chairing the commissions that will deal with the U.S. engagement in the war in Ukraine, appeared on ABC This Week's program to announce their hyper-hawk position on Ukraine. The open American checkbook for the war will proceed to be open, endless.
Ron DeSantis gives us hope for a realism-based approach. Daniel McCarthy writes: “DeSantis, like Trump, is on the “brave” side. Evidence suggests that DeSantis is besides against the wars for a government change. In 2013, during DeSantis' first year in Congress, Obama seriously considered military intervention in Syria against Bashar al-Assad's regime. Bush's faction in the Republican Party, represented in the legislature by John McCain, was for war. DeSantis wasn't. In a message on Facebook, he wrote:
"The Obama administration has not spelled out a clear mark for the usage of military force in Syria, much little a plan to accomplish this goal. This is all the more problematic, given the realities of the Syrian civilian War, in which the dictatorship of Assad (supported by Iran and Hezbollah) fights against alleged rebels, dominated by Sunni supremacists and al-Qaeda militants. In another words, the United States has no interest in helping either side of the conflict or in settling a civilian war between these fighting anti-American factions. Moreover, there is simply a danger that a badly planned or half-planned American attack can facilitate terrorist groups to get the same kind of chemical weapons that Al-Qaeda and another groups have long utilized south [sic] against America."
DeSantis is simply a strong critic of the regimes in Tehran and Havana, but shows a lower tendency to military interventionism than Obama. He was a voice of restraint at a time erstwhile Republicans might as well have criticized Obama for not being aggressive enough. Although this is not evidence that DeSantis would avoid conflicts aimed at changing the government and wars if he were president, this is simply a promising clue. It is besides a sharp contrast with any another possible Republican presidential candidates in 2024. For example Mike Pompeo, which was besides in legislature in 2013, and supported the attack on Syria.
Let's hope so.
Rod Dreher
Photo by RIA Novosti
For: ‘The American Conservative’
