Blowin’ in the Wind

Do you sometimes feel that the U.S. foreign policy is at loose ends? Do you get the impression that world events are happening without any prescience on the part of the pundits in Foggy Bottom or the White House? Has the U.S. accomplished anything on the international stage recently? It’s like watching a play where the actors are wandering around not knowing their lines or reading off of different scripts. Our "reset" foreign policy appears to have been stage-managed by Samuel Beckett. Viz:

- The high-priority Israeli peace talks have spun down to nothingness.
- North Korea is flexing its belligerence with silly and dangerous abandon.
- China has just completed its victory lap with White House catering.
- WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of State Dept. cables ... embarrassing many world leaders.
- Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Jordan are on the brink of civil war.
- Iran has successfully stifled the democracy-inspired riots of last year.
- Syria has annexed Lebanon … and, as a reward, the U.S. just reestablished diplomatic relations with them.
- Iraq seems to have deteriorated back into a Hatfield/McCoy shootout between the Sunnis and the Shiites.
- The European Union is holding its currency, the Euro, together with chewing gum.
- The President has made many gaffs and breaches of protocol in direct dealings with U.S. allies.
- Afghanistan, the “necessary war,” is grinding on with little real hope of success.
- Venezuela is rapidly becoming the North Korea of Latin America.
- Mexico (at least the northern part) seems to be run by the drug lords and the coyotes.

But, to me, the much more hair-raising thought is: what if all this is not just bumbling incompetence on our part … but rather crafty competence? Nah! … ?