commentaries

"""Hanson said his second-term strategy is a shift from counterinsurgency and the Middle East"""........ Well, let's hope it goes better than W's second term because "Peace Prize winner" Obama lost hundreds more soldiers in his first term than W lost in his first term. Was that counterinsurgency, or flat-out war? Obama's warrantless droning policy has hit a highwater mark for insulting other nations' independent rights, which likely explains the numerous attacks on our embassy facilities. It also explains the chill with the China's and Russia's of the world. There is an irony that our media obsesses about American youth bullying when we have spent the last few years being the world bully. An Iran or N. Korea dust-up could mean an ugly, perhaps horrific, second term.

Both the Left and the Right need to accept that the United States cannot control all of the movements, passions and conflicts which occur in the world. Even among the nations who respect or actually like us--they do not want to be us. Every foreign intervention (which is always done for the best of reasons) runs the risk of an "endless" commitment and an unsatisfactory outcome at the expense of American lives and treasure. This passion for enforcing a Pax Romana on the world broke the British empire--it is depleting American power today. A narrow application of raison d'État should be the basis for use of American force and intervention. The entire world is not ours to fashion.

""" Every foreign intervention (which is always done for the best of reasons) runs the risk of an "endless" commitment and an unsatisfactory outcome"""......So true, and Vietnam (1962-1975), Iraq (1991-2008), and the ongoing Afghan "whatever" (2001-2013) are recent examples of poorly planned interventions. The latter literally broke the USSR, but our Peace Prize winner still decided to "go big" there. His other policy of using drone-launched Hellfire missiles in numerous sovereign nations has been roundly condemned by our allies and foes. I dont see peaceful times ahead..........

Obama has a foreign policy? Which one would that be? Allowing the Middle East to crumble? If you think our role in keeping peace in the Middle East has been small over the past 30 years, you simply do not understand the complexities of foreign affairs and simply do not understand how far up the Midlle East's Ars we've been. If you think the "Arab Spring" is a good thing, you're wrong. This was and is a huge failure on Obama's part and we (The U.S.) will be paying for this for years and years to come. So then what other foreign policy is there... China, North Korea, Iran? Yeah, he crapped that up too.