Quote Originally Posted by Rank amateur View Post
"Talk softly and carry a big stick" seems to work much better than "talk tough even if you don't have a stick, or your stick is elsewhere deployed." Hopefully, we'll start relying more on diplomacy soon.
though -- or people forget you have it. That's why we're in Iraq. Four Presidents from both parties over 22 years tried diplomacy and either did not use or misused the stick. We have the stick and everyone knows it; they also know we use it reluctantly and take advantage of that, to be expected and not a big thing.

We will have achieved more from elsewhere deploying that stick than from 22 years of your diplomacy...

There is no panacea.