Richard Fernandez unloads on the Obama Administration's horrific misadventures and mismanagement in the Middle East, to the point that now we are engaged in saber-rattling with Russia over Syria in Obama, Media Go Quiet on Historic Mideast Catastrophe :
How did an administration which came to office headed by a Child of the World promising to "build bridges" with other cultures, that styled itself as brimming with "smart" foreign policy experts, finish up in an almost comical state of parochialism?The bigger issue, the real source of this problem, of course, is Washington "experts" circa 2008-2016:
Why, rather than bestriding the globe, has it withdrawn in outlook, buttoned up like a tank, viewing the outside world only through the narrowest of slits, driving in little circles from talk show to talk show?
The "smartest people" on the planet found they were not quite as clever as they thought.The geo-political track record of this administration has been not just bad, it's been historically awful. Yet the media distracts the American people with an unnatural, stalker-ish focus on Donald Trump.
They should not have been surprised. Over the last decade presidential hopefuls have come from the ranks of thinkers without much experience in governance or the wider world. They knew all the answers -- in theory -- but none in practice. Individuals who spent all their adult lives learning how to raise money, craft talking points, perfect stances before the camera, fund opposition research, and recruit surrogates found that special skills did not travel so well in the wider world.
Had enough yet?