————–

Update:   Boehner is on board.  Are we pretty much in a state of war?  Maybe not.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, liberal and hawkish, dialed-in, experienced and strategic, slowly realizes that Obama’s foreign policy is not particularly strategic, nor structured, but rather an untended garden of difference-splitting, politics (appealing to the civil rights crowd and pro-peace 60’s idealist coalition) and incoherence.

You’ve been hustled.

Meanwhile, the Iranian regime still marches towards deliverable nuclear weapons (organized, terrorist-sponsoring thuggery) and continues to back Assad, the Sunni Arab-World shivers and the Saudis have turned back towards Moscow to some extent.  Putin will leverage any weakness on our part for his political gain at home.  Israeli action and reaction is now more likely, the Turks are left to fend for themselves, and the Syrian sectarian conflict rages on, brutal, bloody, and violent.  Assad’s regime had been hunkering-down for 30 years, now apparently willing to test the international waters for a reaction against the use of Sarin gas.  The Syrian opposition (the better people thrust into war) has been left on its own, and all the worst actors have filled in.  This could escalate into a Civil War, and maybe a regional conflict in which we may eventually find ourselves with fewer options than we have now, still facing Iran in some capacity.

It’s hard to remember such badly conducted foreign policy, and it’s not terribly clear if well conducted foreign policy is forthcoming any time soon in American politics.

It goes to show that some of the inherent logic of our challenges remains similar from President to President.

Addition: Foreign Affairs has good coverage.  What are our options?

Related On This Site: …From Slate: ‘In Aleppo, Syria, Mohamed Atta Thought He Could Build The Ideal Islamic City’

Michael Totten At World Affairs: ‘Syria’s Regime Not Worth Preserving’…James Kirchik At The American Interest: 

Michael Totten’s piece that revisits a Robert Kaplan piece from 1993, which is prescient:  “A Writhing Ghost Of A Would-Be Nation”.  It was always a patchwork of minority tribes, remnants of the Ottoman Empire

I just received a copy of Totten’s book, Where The West Ends, and it’s good reading.

Adam Garfinkle At The American Interest: ‘What Did The Arab Spring Really Change?’…

Liberal Internationalism is hobbling us, and the safety of even the liberal internationalist doctrine if America doesn’t lead…Via Youtube-Uncommon Knowledge With Fouad Ajami And Charles Hill