Stinking Failure

The New York Times' Ross Douthat surveys the Obama foreign policy and finds it disappointing. Three key Douthat observations:

His foreign policy looked modestly successful when he was running for reelection. Now it stinks of failure.

Obama is responsible for the initiatives he's pursued, the strategies he's blessed, and the priorities he's set. And almost nothing on that list is working out.

Yet except for the killing of Osama bin Laden - an "except" that has to be qualified by Islamist terrorism's resurgence - if Obama's presidency ended today I have no idea what major foreign policy achievements his defenders could reasonably cite.

I guess Obama can claim he avoided sending large numbers of troops to global hotspots. However, in an uncertain world such avoidance isn't always a superpower's best option.