Weekly Standard

There seems little doubt that 2014 will go down as a truly horrible year for American foreign policy. From the Russian seizure of Crimea and further irregular incursions into eastern Ukraine, to the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, to a worsening security problem in Afghanistan ahead of an anticipated U.S. drawdown, to the rise of fringe political parties in Europe, to Iran’s onward march to a nuclear capability, to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa—combined with an American public portrayed by pollsters as weary of the burdens of U.S. global leadership as well as a solidly bipartisan majority in Congress for sharply declining spending on national security—well, it’s been quite a pile-on for the “world’s sole superpower.”

Tragically but also comically, in the way of the world, the only good news of 2014 has been the absence of still more bad news. Fareed Zakaria, one of the Obama administration’s more tenacious sympathizers, took to hisWashington Post column on August 7 to herald “Global Success Stories” in Indonesia and Mexico. He of course promoted it on Twitter to his half-million followers. That happened to be the very day the president was announcing a military strike on ISIS targets to prevent the slaughter of thousands of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis holed up on Mount Sinjar. The juxtaposition led Rosie Gray of BuzzFeed to weigh in with a classic put-down: Linking to Zakaria’s exercise in self-promotion—“Wherever you look the world seems on fire. But some of the most populous nations are making amazing progress”—she tweeted, “not now, Fareed.” Continue reading →