Heavy Criticism by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post on Mr. Obama’s Lack of Intervention in Egypt

But No Specifics Of Course – Because There Are None

The horrific military attack on opposition civilians in Egypt has brought a barrage of criticism of Mr. Obama, like this by Jackson Diehl in the Washington Post.

Obama looks like a president in full flight from a world that looks nothing like what he imagined when he took office. The president saw himself soothing U.S. relations with Muslim nations while gently extracting U.S. troops from Iraq and focusing his energy on other regions and issues: Asia; nuclear arms control; Israeli-Palestinian peace. What he got was an epochal upheaval in the very place from which he had hoped to disengage.

No, what the President looks like is a man in full command of reality.  The U. S. cannot change the world, it cannot intervene in Egypt, it can deplore and condemn the violence but it cannot affect or prevent it.  That lesson has been learned the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Mr. Obama has learned it, Mr. Diehl and others have not.

The proof of all this, other than recommending a cutoff of military aid to Egypt, something that will make no difference whatsoever Mr. Diehl and the others like him have no suggestions, no recommendations, no ideas.  They only criticize, and while criticizing is fun and easy (it’s what we do) actually doing something when no options are available is impossible.  Mr. Diehl serves us well, he reminds everyone of the blind analysis of those who do not recognize reality in world politics.