My must read of the day is "Your strategy was wrong, Mr. President," by Jeff Jacoby, in the Boston Globe:
In a TV interview this week, John McCain offered President Obama some sound, if difficult, advice.
"Mr. President," the Arizona senator said, "don’t be ashamed of re-evaluating your view of the role of the United States in the world." […]
Obama’s foreign policy is in a shambles. Nearly six years into a presidency whose approach to the world has been grounded in American retrenchment, "leading from behind," deference to multinational organizations, and rejection of military solutions, the world has become a much more dangerous place. Exhibit A, of course, is Iraq, where Obama was not only adamant that all US troops must be withdrawn, but boasted — over and over — that he had kept his promise.
It is clear now that America’s disengagement from Iraq, coupled with Obama’s unwillingness to aid moderates in the Syrian civil war, created a vacuum that the vicious jihadists of ISIS readily filled. Their self-proclaimed caliphate now rules an estimated 35,000 square miles in Iraq and northern Syria. This month Obama reluctantly ordered targeted airstrikes near Irbil, and the Pentagon is considering potential bombing targets inside Syria. But the president still cannot bring himself to concede what more and more Americans grasp: The US retreat from global leadership was unwise.
President Obama’s declaration that "we have no strategy" was a press secretary’s nightmare. It was a terrible statement, even if he misspoke, and it’s bite size—making for the perfect sound bite to play again and again and again.
The administration has since tried to backtrack, but the problem is not simply failing to have a strategy to deal with ISIS. The problem is his general foreign policy outlook. There’s no way to form a cohesive or meaningful strategy to deal with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) if the president refuses to concede a policy to not do "stupid stuff" is an utter failure.
ISIL is a Syrian problem that spilled into Iraq. The administration’s neglect of Syria provided an opportunity for the group to flourish, building their group both in organizational strength and physical skills. ISIL cannot be dealt with unless there is a base-level recognition that the United States’ tendency toward avoidance or tepid involvement in the region led to the situation we see now.