Sheldon Richman on the Clueless Foreign Policy Elite

The
American foreign-policy elite seems to have no idea what it’s
doing. Americans may believe the government — especially the
foreign-policy side — is at least minimally competent, but when one
surveys decisions from the last few decades, one has to wonder. The
current crop of policymakers, like earlier ones, know what
they want to do: make the world safe for
American leadership — or, less euphemistically, American hegemony:
No rivals for American influence or access to resources and markets
can be tolerated. As President George H.W. Bush said, “What we say
goes.” Even by that standard, writes Sheldon Richman, the policy
architects and executors look incompetent — or unbelievably
cynical. No better evidence exists than the policies that led to
the so-called Islamic State and President Barack Obama’s response
to it.

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