Obama's phony realism
In accepting the Nobel prize, President Obama declared that military force was justified on humanitarian grounds and that the defense of human rights was in the national interest. Now he has set the precedent of waging war for third tier interests beyond the narrow scope of national security. In so doing, he has compromised the nation's security interest in non-proliferation. The key lesson that states like Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia will draw from the military intervention in Libya is to keep a nuclear development program if you have one and go get one if you do not. One has to believe that Qaddafi is now tormenting himself at night with the question: "Why did I ever agree to give up my WMD programs? - Marc Sheetz
This plus a surge of troops for nation building in Afghanistan certainly doesn't suggest an administration interested in off-shore balancing. And seemingly no amount of national indebtedness or strategic over-stretch can persuade them otherwise. Some realist.
