The Foreign Policy Conversation Democrats Would Rather Not Have

Legal Insurrection

"That would be defending the indefensible foreign policy of the Obama administration"

"If you receive Morning Insurrection, you would have seen Prof. Miriam Elman’s recommendation to read Jonah Goldberg’s piece on the importance of foreign policy in the upcoming election. . . . 

"Goldberg wrote:

"We can debate how much blame Obama deserves for Syria’s civil war, but almost no one outside his paid staff disputes that he’s only made things worse. The conflict there has set off the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since the end of World War II — that’s John Kerry’s own assessment — which may yet tear the European Union asunder.

"The instability closer to the fighting is even more dangerous. Russia and Turkey may soon go to war with one another, as Russia mercilessly and indiscriminately massacres anyone standing in the way of its pet, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The Jordanian monarchy may crumble, in part for a lack of assistance from the United States.

"And yet, the gravity of the situation has yet to enter into the presidential contest in a serious way. As a co-author of Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, Hillary Clinton has no interest in calling attention to the global catastrophes unfolding around us. Bernie Sanders doesn’t want to talk about anything he can’t blame on billionaires, and Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about anything other than his poll numbers, his insults, and the fraudulent claim that he predicted all of this before Bush launched the war in Iraq."

. . .  "A Pew poll in December showed that, in the wake of the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks, terrorism is now the top concern among Americans at 18%. National security is third at 8%. A year ago those issues were listed by 1% and 2% of Americans, respectively. Worse for the Democrats, the same poll showed that American trust Republicans more on matters of national security over Democrats by a margin of 46% to 34%." . . .