Does President Obama Believe That America Can Win The Wars That It Is Engaged In?

President Obama, meeting Thursday with his National Security Council, wants more intelligence experts to see information intercepted by the National Security Agency. Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times

Kori Schake, The Atlantic: Obama: Fighting Wars He Believes Unwinnable

What’s behind the president’s inaction?

There is much to unpack in Barack Obama’s remark to Jeffrey Goldberg that Saudi Arabia needs to “share” the Middle East with Iran. Note that he makes little distinction between the claims of an American ally and a state sponsor of terrorism, or their respective methods. It is the progressive’s equivalence, akin to Apple’s insistence that it cannot grant “backdoors” to the U.S. government even with a court order because then it would have to permit even the most repressive governments access to the data on people’s phones. President Obama has done a creditable job of engaging with American adversaries, creating opportunities for cooperation. Whether that is enough to balance the erosion of the international order caused by his policies—an erosion Obama would surely say is not his fault, and instead attributable to titanic, uncontrollable global trends—may prove the essential question surrounding his foreign-policy legacy.

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WNU Editor: The debate on his foreign policy and its legacy is beginning .... Obama’s Afghan Legacy in the Balance (Max Boot, Commentary).