Will repeated whacks with the reality stick have an impression on our president?
Defeat can lead to defeatism, or it can lead to constructive rethinking. Which path will President Obama take after setbacks overseas?
Neither. That question assumes President Obama really cares about foreign policy.
As I've long said, I think that President Obama treats foreign affairs as a potential distraction to his objectives at home of transforming our country. He'd love to be the prime minister of a social-democratic European country, and that's what he pursues.
Foreign policy is a potential distraction to achieving that goal, and he does what it takes to avoid rocking the boat to impact domestic policy.
So he withdraws from the "bad war" in Iraq rather than fight to stay and defend our gains because it is easier to do the former.
He escalated in Afghanistan because it was the "good war" and it was easier to send troops to fight and die even though he really had no strong opinions about the war's outcome.
And with the war in Afghanistan no longer the "good war" it is easier to just get out and not try very hard to defend our gains there.
Chat up Iran and Syria to put off any day of reckoning past the 2014 mid-term Congressional elections.
The only place this strategy works to my liking is with North Korea, where the easiest path of inaction just allows North Korea time to collapse from their massively inept management of their economy.
Basically, President Obama doesn't want to get involved with any foreign problem, viewing them as distractions from his true love of domestic transformation.
So, no, President Obama will not awaken to the Russian threat after Russia invaded and captured Crimea just as President Carter awoke to the threat of the Soviet Union after they invades Afghanistan. As the Instapundit often notes, the Carter scenario is the best-case outcome for this administration.
Face it, President Obama simply does not measure defeat or victory based on what happens outside of the Washington Beltway. So Hiatt's question is completely irrelevant.
