If the U.S. won’t act to protect the kingdom, Saudi Arabia will act on its own, as it is currently doing in Yemen, Syria, and other countries — and the U.S. is unlikely to be happy with the consequences.
Yeah. Remember when "leading from behind [allies]" was all the rage in nuanced foreign policy circles?
When we want allies who can fight without us taking the lead--wait for it--we get allies who can fight without us in the lead.
So they might fight in Vietnam. Or invade Egypt.
If we're unwilling to have allies capable of fighting in their own interests, and we're unwilling to pay for our own defense capabilities that could convince our allies that they only need military capacity that complements our capabilities, what's left?
Will we wish for our foes and enemies to simply stop being threats? Or just pretend they aren't threats?
God help me, but I think I just wrote the 2016 Democratic presidential foreign policy.
As I noted after the Libya War, we once had that world. Did we like it then?
Well, we have it now. Even a blogger could see this coming.
I sometimes think back to the first couple of years of the Obama administration when I had regular readers in the White House executive office (two, it seemed, from patterns and IP addresses).
At the time, I never mentioned it because every once in a while I wrote a post with just one audience in mind, and didn't want to taint the waters.
I guess it didn't take.
Or maybe it did have an effect and they were forced to resign.
The best and brightest, indeed.
