once more into the breach. one thing we are doing in the middle east is assembling a shia coalition against isis and more widely against sunni islam: here we are de facto allied with assad, russia, and iran. (pay attention to what we do and the actual effects of what we do, not to what we say. are we doing anything about assad? where does that put the turks in our coalition?) this is what we're doing when we're arming and training (and, er, commanding) the iraqi army in the field, with shia militias and iranian commanders. that's also why all these deals with iran are getting done. another thing we're doing is assembling a sunni coalition, supposedly against isis, and against shia islam. so, e.g., we're arming and re-arming the saudis in their effort to level yemen and remove all taint of iranian influence there by expunging all traces of life. we're arming both turkey and the kurds, etc. oh yes, also we're non-stop placating and arming israel. so let me ask you: what would you expect to be the result of all these policies?
we're going to look at american foreign policy of this period as a completely incoherent mess resulting in unbelievable disaster. that's certainly one thing that one might look for in a presidential candidate: some sort of coherent approach to this matter. the only constructive approach i could see to the situation is actually isoltionism with regard to it; i cannot picture a useful intervention. but almost anything is better than what we've got going.
