You think Kissinger was heartless? What about Obama?

Niall Ferguson: Think Kissinger was the heartless grandmaster of realpolitik? What about Obama?

. . . "Having spent much of the last decade writing a life of Kissinger, I no longer think of the former secretary of State as the heartless grandmaster of realpolitik. (That's a caricature.) But after reading countless critiques of his record, not least the late Christopher Hitchens' influential "Trial of Henry Kissinger," I also find myself asking another question: Where are the equivalent critiques of Obama?" . . .

"There is disenchantment with Obama's foreign policy these days. In recent polls, nearly half of Americans (49.3%) disapprove of it, compared with fewer than 38% who approve. I suspect, however, that many disapprove for the wrong reasons. The president is widely seen, especially on the right, as weak. In my view, his strategy is flawed, but there is no doubting his ruthlessness when it comes to executing it.

"As Hitchens surely would observe if he were still around, a great many liberals today apply a double standard when they judge the foreign policies of Nobel Peace Prize laureates Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama. If you think Kissinger didn't deserve his Nobel, then neither did Obama."
Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University and senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford. He is the author, most recently, of "Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist."