As you know, I'm fairly sympathetic to your view. But.. given your closing paragraphs you almost seem to be suggesting that you'd rather Obama's USA was more assertive in the world.

Or would you prefer it be assertive in some ways, with the I/P situation and less assertive, in the Middle East generally ? It does look a little scattergun and inconsistent.

However much the US likes to don the white hat of moral righteousness as it justifies its acts of world interference, history shows that the US is no different from any other country: It is only concerned with its own interests such as resource control and internal security. Foreign policy is NOT about making the world better, or at least it hasn't since Roosevelt; it's about ensuring that the administration looks good to significant parts of the US electorate. Latterly that has degenerated into persuading significant donors that their corporate interests are best ensured with the current party in power.

We may consider that Obama looks weak in foreign policy, but that's because we aren't seeing it as he does. He's inherited a country whose power and reach have been seriously compromised by his immediate predecessor, so he feels obliged to continue the rhetorical bluster of recent history, but must tack, gracefully or otherwise, to reality.

We want him to do the right thing, always. However, I've come to doubt that our views of the "right" thing and his even coincide to any significant part. He is a centre-left consensualist, which in European terms makes him quite right wing. He only appears liberal in comparison to republicans.

If you wanted somebody who'd do the "right" thing in european terms, we'd have Kucinich, Gravel or Sanders. But such a candidate is absolutely unelectable in USA. As Rumsfeldt nearly said "the world must work with the President we have, not the one we want".

keep to the Fen Causeway