At his
The American Interest blog, Walter Russell Mead
writes about the disarray in the Obama foreign policy. Mead quotes James Jeffrey, Obama's former Ambassador to Iraq about U.S. Middle East policy.
We’re in a goddamn (sic) free fall here.
Mead highlights a few big administration screw-ups:
Having fundamentally misjudged major developments (calling ISIS the “jayvee team,” Yemen a success, Erdogan a reliable partner, etc. etc.).
He could have added: announcing our Afghanistan departure date, failure to arm the Kurds, abandoning Iraq, turning on Israel. Mead concludes:
Even the President’s ideological fellow travelers can no longer mount a cogent defense of his Middle East policy.
The shocked silence of the foreign policy establishment, the absence of any statements of support from European or Asian allies about our Middle East course, the evidence that the President and the “senior officials” whom he trusts continue to be blindsided by major developments they didn’t expect and haven’t provided for: all of this tells us that our Middle East policy is indeed in free fall.
Question: How differently would this President behave if it were his publicly stated intention to destroy the U.S. super power status? Answer: not much differently.
