Quote Originally Posted by Bob's World View Post
A lot of bad understanding and bad decisions have been compiling for over a decade now.
Nixon's panel on Terrorism in response to the attacks in Munich provided a road map -- but he got busy with domestic politics; Ford's hands were tied; Carter's handling of the Tehran Embassy seizure was disastrous; Regan blew it with Lebanon; Bush 41 decided to pay later; Clinton bombed or attacked four sovereign countries to no avail, Bush 43 let his Christian charitable instincts overrule his duty to the nation; Obama started by presenting an apology to the world's supreme hagglers who will rapidly exploit the slightest sign of weakness and he's gone down hill since...

That's four decades of flawed ME / Islam policy.
There is no graceful way to walk away from that. Now we worry more about our grace, and our honor. This is one where need to just swallow our pride and walk away...
It's not honor or pride -- those are understood in the ME if less so here in the west, those folks would understand and accept that but they're smart enough to know that's not the reason -- it's domestic political pressures. Venal, stupid, self and party over national interests...

The Intel Community insists they had no 'actionable' intelligence prior to the attack; I note our ambassador to the UN who I believe works in New York is overruling the Libyans by insisting that the attack on the Consulate in Benghazi was not planned.

Sheesh. All that US domestic political foolishness as a driver let's those who wish and their fellow travelers know they can get stupid with no repercussions.

Crass stupidity. Bill Moore's got it right: "..it is somewhat difficult for any politician at this point to say oops we got this one wrong. It would go entirely against the narrative we created..."

He also said " I suspect the only hope for disengagement from nation building to diplomatic engagement and assistance is to gradually change the narrative over time, which it appears we're doing." I hope that's right -- but I'm terribly afraid it is not -- the foreign policy establishment in both parties have different priorities but both have really bad messianic complexes...