President Biden’s Weak Foreign Policy Reflects Reduced Sense of America’s National Honor

Famously, a message from Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of state, John Hay, electrified the 1904 Republican convention: “This Government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”

Ion Perdicaris, a wealthy Greek-American, had been kidnapped in Morocco by a bandit named Ahmed al-Raisuli. Hay’s line served as a U.S. ultimatum to bring the affair, after the deployment of the U.S. Navy to Morocco and drawn-out negotiations, to a conclusion.

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Rich Lowry

Rich Lowry is the editor in chief of National Review.

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Famously, a message from Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of state, John Hay, electrified the 1904 Republican convention: “This Government wants Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”

Ion Perdicaris, a wealthy Greek-American, had been kidnapped in Morocco by a bandit named Ahmed al-Raisuli. Hay’s line served as a U.S. ultimatum to bring the affair, after the deployment of the U.S. Navy to Morocco and drawn-out negotiations, to a conclusion.