The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy

[Wehrwolfen]

By Robert D. Kaplan
August 1, 2013

For over two years, the civil war in Syria has been synonymous with cries of moral urgency. Do Something! shout those who demand the United States intervene militarily to set the situation there to rights, even as the battle lines now comprise hundreds of regime and rebel groupings and the rebels have started fighting each other. Well, then, shout the moral interventionists, if only we had intervened earlier!

Syria is not unique. Before Syria, humanitarians in 2011 demanded military intervention inLibya, even though the regime of Muammar Qaddafi had given up its nuclear program and had been cooperating for years with Western intelligence agencies. In fact, the United States and France did lead an intervention, and Libya today is barely a state, with Tripoli less a capital than the weak point of imperial-like arbitration for far-flung militias, tribes, and clans, while nearby Saharan entities are in greater disarray because of weapons flooding out of Libya.


[excerpt]

Read more:
Commentary: The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy | The National Interest

 

[TheNextEra]

By Robert D. Kaplan
August 1, 2013

For over two years, the civil war in Syria has been synonymous with cries of moral urgency. Do Something! shout those who demand the United States intervene militarily to set the situation there to rights, even as the battle lines now comprise hundreds of regime and rebel groupings and the rebels have started fighting each other. Well, then, shout the moral interventionists, if only we had intervened earlier!

Syria is not unique. Before Syria, humanitarians in 2011 demanded military intervention inLibya, even though the regime of Muammar Qaddafi had given up its nuclear program and had been cooperating for years with Western intelligence agencies. In fact, the United States and France did lead an intervention, and Libya today is barely a state, with Tripoli less a capital than the weak point of imperial-like arbitration for far-flung militias, tribes, and clans, while nearby Saharan entities are in greater disarray because of weapons flooding out of Libya.


[excerpt]

Read more:
Commentary: The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy | The National Interest

The U.S. needs to realize that the Middle East should be "off limits" for "spreading democracy" (that's a joke). That place has ALWAYS been a trumoil and interfering with it just makes it worse. I can understand helping a country from being invaded (such as Kuwait was), but internal strife should be left alone.

The ONLY administration I've been happy with on foreign policy was under Bush I and I didn't care for the man as president but I felt he handled foreign policy like a champ.

 

[Wehrwolfen]

The U.S. needs to realize that the Middle East should be "off limits" for "spreading democracy" (that's a joke). That place has ALWAYS been a trumoil and interfering with it just makes it worse. I can understand helping a country from being invaded (such as Kuwait was), but internal strife should be left alone.

The ONLY administration I've been happy with on foreign policy was under Bush I and I didn't care for the man as president but I felt he handled foreign policy like a champ.

What we can say is that the consequences and decisions made by Wilson's League of Nations, now the United Nations have haunted us all these years. It's similar to Biden's idea of splitting Iraq into 3 federations along Ideological lines. Had not the interference of the L of N splitting the Ottoman Empire up, I wonder how things would have ended up?