Covert Policy

Walter Russell Mead writes in The American Interest about the Obama administration's unenunciated policy in the Middle East.

An attempt to keep the U.S. out no matter what happens—while making it look as if we care. What that strategy boils down to is letting Iran and Russia do pretty much what they want in the Middle East in the belief that the fight is too dirty for the U.S. to gain anything by participating in it.

Because this strategy telegraphs weakness globally and threatens to destabilize the Middle East even more than we’ve already seen, it would go over very poorly in the U.S. if it dared to speak its own name.

You'd think Mr. Obama would be more exercised about an entity - the Islamic State - that has slavery as a formal part of its standard operating procedures. I assume a person of African heritage in America is hyper-sensitive to any hint of slavery, apparently not.