Victor Davis Hanson‘s latest column at National Review Online focuses on the president’s interesting response to recent political developments.

Obama feels he has new leverage with Iran and Russia. But if that is true, the opportunity did not derive from his heralded reset policies, which offered outreach while blaming the prior administration for the tense relations with those two countries. Instead, the oil-price crash of late 2014 — brought about by private American drillers and conniving Middle East oil sheiks — robbed Iran, Russia, and Venezuela of hundreds of billions of dollars in income.

That shortfall meant internal instability, smaller subsidies to terrorists, fewer cut-rate arms sales, and less direct aid to America’s enemies. In contrast, as far as his own initiatives go, Obama does not brag much about the bombing of Libya, the pullout of all troops from a once-quiet Iraq, supposed red lines and deadlines in the Middle East, or the expected calm in Afghanistan after he has sent home all U.S. constabulary troops.

Perhaps Obama believes that he jawboned against new energy production in hopes of enraging domestic producers to the point where they would double up their efforts on private lands, which in turn would help lower oil prices — all as part of a grand Machiavellian plan to weaken our petro enemies. If so, bravo.

Obama takes credit for the fact that gas prices at home have crashed, which when he entered office he would have labeled a bad thing because it would spike the driving of carbon-spewing vehicles and heat up the planet. He apparently assumed, however, that the private sector would keep drilling when he predicted in 2012 that it could not lower prices much by doing just that.

Again, maybe that twisted logic was part of a brilliantly convoluted plan to discredit green wind and solar subsidies, whose corrupt crony capitalism had weakened his administration. In any case, suddenly there is no more administration talk of hoping gasoline prices climb to European levels or that electricity costs skyrocket. Steven Chu’s mutterings and the ideal of a family of five packed into a Prius on the way to the high-speed-railroad station seem like yesteryear.