The public focus on Obama’s decision-making has obscured something perhaps more important, which is the breakdown of bipartisan foreign policy. Instead of converging in the center around U.S. leadership, the country seems to be converging at the wings, in a shared left-right rejection of the traditional interventionist role. The public overwhelmingly rejects more “wars of choice” in the Middle East to help nations and people who are seen as feckless and ungrateful.
You can think this new American caution is potentially dangerous (as I do), but there’s no arguing that it’s deeply felt and (given the immense cost and almost nonexistent benefits of war in Iraq and Afghanistan) understandable. The question is what a president should do about it.
We must support more wars with immense costs and nonexistent benefits!!! The bipartisan consensus demands it!!!