[justa-hairyape]

Well, when GWB left the office of Presidency, the world was not this screwed up. What we have had the past 4 1/2 years is neocon policies administered through Obama/Hillary/Kerry. That has been a recipe for disaster. They could not get massive military support for any neocon policies because they had railed against the second war on Iraq. So the only tool the neocons had was to fund rebels and terrorist with arms. The result is civil wars throughout the region. Iraq was stable when GWB left office.

[dfwgator]

The only “winner” in the Iraq war was Iran.

[Ben Ficklin]

NeoCon Republicans and Liberal interventionist democrats are natural allies. They are both idealists, they both believe in a foreign policy that includes humanitarianism and nation building. But the NeoCons say that since the US was/is the last remaining superpower then the US should act as the world hegemon and do their foreign policy uni-laterally. The liberal interventionist are mutilateralists.

OTOH, the Realists, made up of Dems and republicans say humanitarianism and nation building are admirable things, but we shouldn't include them in our foreign policy. We should act only in our self interest.

Then you have two other groups, rightwing isolationists and leftwing anti war pacifists, but these two don't have much influence on US foreign policy.

Look at Libya. When events began to unfold there early in 2011, the NeoCons came out agitatating for Obama to intervene unilaterally. Bob Gates, the top realist in the Obama administration, said Obama wouldn't intervene because it wasn't in our self interest.

Before long 3 prominent liberal interventionists(Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power) had worked up a multilateral agreement involving the UN, Nato, and the Arab League. Based on that, Obama intervened.

The NeoCons praised Obama for intervening. Bill Kristol proclaimed Obama to be a "Born Again NeoCon". But they still criticized him. He should have gone in immediately when we told him to. They complained that because he went in multilaterally, he was leading from behind. And some, like John Bolton, complained because Obama didn't put boots on the ground.

Then 2 of the top realists, Kissinger and Baker, published an editorial in WaPo in which they complained that the US should be more realistically Idealist. They also warned that Libya could blow up in our face. Which it did with Benghazi.

Now you have the same conflicts going on with whether or not to intervene in Syria.