Headline of the Day

Can the killer rabbit be very long in coming?  Because this is the headline of the day, if not the year, from the Wall Street Journal:

Obama Contends With Arc of Instability Not Seen Since ‘70s

And we all remember who was president when the 1970s spun fully out of control?  Anyway, in case you don’t have a WSJ subscription, here’s the lede:

WASHINGTON—A convergence of security crises is playing out around the globe, from the Palestinian territories and Iraq to Ukraine and the South China Sea, posing a serious challenge to President Barack Obama‘s foreign policy and reflecting a world in which U.S. global power seems increasingly tenuous.

The breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn’t been seen since the late 1970s, U.S. security strategists say, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, revolutionary Islamists took power in Iran, and Southeast Asia was reeling in the wake of the U.S. exit from Vietnam. . .

The chaos has meant that the Obama administration finds itself in the middle of a second term reacting to rather than directing world events. Dangers for the president and for the U.S. are growing as militant groups gain greater control.

As we noted here the other day, Obama has fully matched Jimmy Carter’s fecklessness, reviving Henry Kissinger’s summation, which is worth repeating:

“The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.”

I think it was Glenn Reynolds who first remarked that a rerun of Carter might be a best-case scenario for the Obama presidency, and it appears he has understated the depth of the problem.  This is what happens when you have a president who decides the U.S. can simply check out of world leadership.  The Rand Pauls of the world have a point that the U.S. is overextended in the world, and a rethinking of our commitments and grand strategy is certainly a valid undertaking.  I noted here two years ago, after John argued that we should withdraw from Afghanistan, that Winston Churchill might well have agreed.

But Obama is not giving us a thoughtful reconsideration of American grand strategy.  He’s just bugging out.

Killer Rabbit 2 copy

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