Obama doesn't have a foreign policy

Even Obama’s audacious decision not only to continue but massively expand the policy of targeted killings has an oddly cautious flavor to it. If you obliterate terrorists with a drone, you don’t have the messy political question of how to arrest, jail, interrogate or prosecute them.

Obama’s Libya policy may not amount to a doctrine, but it did establish two principles. Last March, Obama explained that we must intervene when there’s a risk of massacres or genocide, but we can never do so alone unless Americans are directly at risk.

At face value, I find this borderline repugnant. America shouldn’t be the world’s policeman, but neither should we make it a matter of principle to say we won’t stop genocide when and where we can simply because no one will join our posse. Still, one does have to marvel at its cautiousness. It buys bravery on the cheap by saying we must do something, and then exempts us from having to do anything if we’re alone in our principles. Cross your fingers and Belgium will save us from acting by ourselves!