I hate this:

US president Barack Obama on Monday called Russia’s actions in Ukraine a violation of international law that place Russia on “the wrong side of history” as the State Department prepared to draw up sanctions against Moscow.

I don’t hate Obama’s condemnation of Putin’s move against Ukraine. Putin ought not to have done it. Russia ought to withdraw from Crimea. Putin is playing a very, very dangerous game here.

What I hate is the idea that there is a such thing as the “right side of history.” History doesn’t have a side. This is self-justifying nonsense from people who think that their way of seeing and being in the world is the righteous one. Had Hitler won the war, the Nazis would have been on the “right side of history.” Had the Soviets prevailed in the Cold War, ditto; in fact, defector Whittaker Chambers thought that in leaving the Left, he was abandoning what would be the winning side. The wide channel of History is littered with the shipwrecks of those who believed themselves to be sailing on the right side. In the long run, every empire is dead. Rome was on the right side of history, until it wasn’t. The same will be true of us.

Obama apparently believes that history is not going to be favorable for the kind of autocratic nationalism Putin practices. If by that he means that Putin’s is not a working model for the near future, he’s probably right. But the liberalization and democratization the Western right-thinkers expected for China after it got rich has not materialized, and may not. Modernization does not necessarily mean liberalization or democratization, as we previously thought. In 1994, President Clinton said that Boris Yeltsin was “on the right side of history.” Was he, though? Yeltsin’s rule was calamitous, and is responsible for the rise of Putin. Who, or what, will follow Putin? Chances are it’s not going to be anything or anyone favorable to the Washington consensus.

Whenever you hear someone invoke a “side of history,” ask, “Who’s side? Who’s history?” Besides, even if there were a such thing as a “right side of history,” it’s far more important to be right.