With one international crisis after another piling up under President Barack Obama’s watch, many pundits are questioning whether the US’s new, relatively hands-off foreign policy is workable.
Why isn’t the US doing more to stabilize Iraq? To bring liberty to Syria? To minimize religious fundamentalists gaining steam?
Such debates miss the point. The real question is whether Americans still place a priority on costly and bloody interventions in distant lands.
The answer, it would seem, is a resounding no. Facing mounting personal and government debt, a fragile economy and a divisive political climate, Americans appear largely fed up with their role as world policeman.
“Why must global dirty work always fall on us?” they ask. And rightly so.
After winding down the war in Iraq, and escalating and winding down the war in Afghanistan, Obama can read public sentiment.
It’s not that he approves of the deadly conflicts taking place in faraway places, or that he is naive to the theoretical implications for the long-term safety of the West.
He’s just willing to accept the shackles of public opinion, monetary limitations and his own aversion to military adventures that have all too often produced little by way of gains.
