Both Bill M and Robert while correct take different roads to the same point in the fork.
For me the fork in the road is that right now and for the first time in American foreign policy since 1946 I am as an American not exactly sure this White House and it's NSS really does understand the world around them and or far worse they are misinterpreting what they are seeing.
Example---first Murbarak, then the Arab Spring, then Morsi, then not accepting Sisi then leaving Egypt outside alliance against IS even when Egyptians are beheaded--so again exactly what is the US ME FP? First close ties to the KSA, then distance, then now basically at odds with the KSA and yet KSA is needed to counter and reign in IS---and the list just keeps going on and on and on.
For without a solid defined national strategy on anything ie IS and Russia you will never be able to support "values" "order" and or just about anything else one wants use for words.
This WH and NSS simply do not have a strategy other than riding it out till 1 Jan 2017 and after us the flood.
The Ukraine Humiliation - Putin marches over Merkel, Hollande and Obama.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ukra...ion-1424390758 …
"high time that U.S. see the Iranian-backed Shiite militias for what they are: a supercharged, multi-headed hydra" https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/19...-amok-in-iraq/ …
In some aspects the ME has been at war with the US since the PLO, Black September, and PFLP days of the early 70s and actually one could go back to 1966---why does this WH not see that progression and include the IS as just part and parcel of that evolution which is slowing coming to a close for what it is--- civil society evolution nothing more nothing less and then ask the question what has the US been doing and or not doing to assist, guide or detour that "evolution".
What is telling is that when even SWJ carried the IS article what the Is Really Wants this week not much was commented on -why is that.
Why is it possible from two different media outlets with two different political mindsets to come to the same place in time and space complaining basically about the same thing.
No ideas and or strategies for just about anything---that in the 21st century is not good.
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