"Light Footprints"

Senator John McCain continues to go on television and trash UN Ambassador Susan Rice for giving a briefing on the Benghazi attacks that he feels was untruthful.   McCain is also claiming that all the trouble and violence in the Middle East is the result of the Obama Administration's "light footprint" in the region.    "Light footprint" apparently refers to the Obama Administration's failure to send troops, enforce "No Fly" zones or take other military action in the region.   McCain has previously stated his support for American intervention in Iran and Syria.   It seems to me that Senator McCain sees a military solution to every problem.   He also feels that we should keep troops in Afghanistan past the current 2014 withdrawal date and was not happy that our troops were withdrawn from Iraq without a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government that would allow American troops to remain in that country.   Never mind that the Iraqis clearly did not want American troops to remain in their war-ravaged country.   The sticking point for a Status of Forces Agreement was reported to be American insistence on the customary provision in the SOFA that American soldiers would be immune from following the requirement of Iraqi law.  

The main reason that I voted for President Obama, although certainly not the only reason, was to keep the Republicans out of the White House.   It was widely reported that Mitt Romney was disinterested in foreign affairs, even to the point of not reading the briefing memos provided to him during the campaign.   Witness his comment that Iran needs Syria as it's "route to the sea."   A quick look at a map demonstrates how far off Romney was on this bit of analysis.   It was further reported that his primary foreign policy advisers were those selfsame "Neo-cons" who gave us the invasion of Iraq, the nation-building exercise in Afghanistan, and other military misadventures.   We certainly don't need more of that.

President Obama has shown every sign of mitigating our hyper-aggressive, militaristic, approach to foreign policy.   It would seem that it is now time to adopt some element of realism in our foreign policy.   We simply cannot control everything that happens in the world.   We cannot take responsibility for every outbreak of violence across the globe.   Virtually every country in the Middle East has seen a revolution of some kind since the "Arab Spring."   Specifically, although the death and destruction in Syria is tragic, it is not of necessity an American problem.   We need to let the events in Syria play out as they will.   We cannot control events in every country in the Middle East and it's time that we recognize that fact and stop the American loss of blood, treasure, and world standing that these repeated interventions entail.   Before World War II American foreign policy was primarily "isolationist," in that our country tried to avoid becoming entangled in foreign wars.   Consistent with the Founders dislike of "standing armies," our military had been intentionally kept small.   In today's complex world, we certainly cannot go back to an isolationist foreign policy.   However, the "interventionist" foreign policy of the years since the end of World War II needs to end.   In retrospect, what did all the American blood and treasure accomplish in Korea, Viet Nam, or Iraq?

We currently spend more on "defense" than all of the other countries in the world combined.   The two unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are primarily what has put us in our current fiscal hole.   And yet, we have not been attacked by another country since December 7, 1941.   All of the many wars we have been involved in since that day of infamy have been wars of choice, begun to squelch the expansion of Communism or fight the "War on Terror" or to achieve some other noble purpose.   A fraction of the military capacity we currently maintain would effectively deter any nation from attacking us or our defense treaty partners.   Even a handful of nuclear weapons would do that.   It's time we stop trying to solve every political problem in the world by the use of military force.   We cannot afford to do otherwise.   Either that or let's be honest and change the name of the "Defense Department" back to the "War  Department" as it was until after World War II.