I think the simpler explanation (which is, in fact, embarrassing) is that as much as we might rail against aspects of our culture, Dagbloggers are still affected by it. We often go for the easy-to-have-an-opinion about low-hanging fruit over the more relevant pieces on foreign policy. That's not to say that foreign policy doesn't get discussed here, but you're absolutely correct that it doesn't get the amount of attention that it should, both in terms of the amount of items being posted on it, as well as the number of comments that get posted on items about it.

That said, Dagblog is a bit of a democracy/meritocracy: to see more attention posted to foreign policy, post more about foreign policy (as you did here).

I thin the article you posted is well written while having the merit of having plenty of stuff that we can disagree on, so hopefully it will generate some discussion.

Here's some questions to get started:

1. Would anyone else have handled Egypt better? How?
2. Was leading from behind in Libya really bad?
3. Was the Iran trap as bad as the author posits?
4. Was the Syria disaster as much a disaster as he indicates?
5. Can we really blame Obama for Turkey?
6. What were the better alternatives for Iraq?
7. How long should we be expected to stay in Afghanistan?
8. Would backing Sunni Syrian rebels really have helped in Lebanon?
9. Does the author have anything to support his Jordan conspiracy theory?
10. Given the Egyptian army's responses to recent events, can we really blame Obama for supporting the country's democratic results, even in hindsight?
11. Does the author think that having even closer ties to Israel would not have made any of the other issues he's complaining about even worse?

Again, that's not to say the article is poorly written or that Obama can do no wrong, I'm partly playing devil's advocate here (I say "partly", because I definitely feel that the author overstates the case, and I have a hard time imagining foreign policy would be better under a President McCain or President Romney), but I hope these are questions that can lead to a good discussion.

From: President Obama’s Commencement Address at West Point

Today ... I am calling on Congress to support a new counterterrorism partnerships fund of up to $5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity and facilitate partner countries on the front lines. And these resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions, including training security forces in Yemen who’ve gone on the offensive against Al Qaeda, supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia, working with European allies to train a functioning security force and border patrol in Libya and facilitating French operations in Mali.

 

A critical focus of this effort will be the ongoing crisis in Syria. As frustrating as it is, there are no easy answers there, no military solution that can eliminate the terrible suffering anytime soon. As president, I made a decision that we should not put American troops into the middle of this increasingly sectarian civil war, and I believe that is the right decision. But that does not mean we shouldn’t help the Syrian people stand up against a dictator who bombs and starves his own people. And in helping those who fight for the right of all Syrians to choose their own future, we are also pushing back against the growing number of extremists who find safe haven in the chaos.

 

So with the additional resources I’m announcing today, we will step up our efforts to support Syria’s neighbors — Jordan and Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq — as they contend with refugees and confront terrorists working across Syria’s borders. I will work with Congress to ramp up support for those in the Syrian opposition who offer the best alternative to terrorists and brutal dictators. And we will continue to coordinate with our friends and allies in Europe and the Arab World to push for a political resolution of this crisis and to make sure that those countries and not just the United States are contributing their fair share of support to the Syrian people.

 

Let me make one final point about our efforts against terrorism. The partnerships I’ve described do not eliminate the need to take direct action when necessary to protect ourselves. When we have actionable intelligence, that’s what we do, through capture operations, like the one that brought a terrorist involved in the plot to bomb our embassies in 1998 to face justice, or drone strikes, like those we’ve carried out in Yemen and Somalia.

 

There are times when those actions are necessary and we cannot hesitate to protect our people. But as I said last year, in taking direct action, we must uphold standards that reflect our values. That means taking strikes only when we face a continuing, imminent threat, and only where there is no certainty -- there is near certainty of no civilian casualties, for our actions should meet a simple test: We must not create more enemies than we take off the battlefield.

The big, unwarranted assumption around a lot of foreign policy talk is that the U.S. has a lot more control over events, has a lot more power to influence the outcome of events, than it has. There are other actors out there with minds and interests of their own. And when the topic is how those other actors should behave, then they have the advantage of being in the driver's seat.

It's one thing to criticize major, voluntary actions that are pretty clearly bone-headed, e.g., the invasion of Iraq. It's another thing to say that, "If only President X had done X, country Y wouldn't be unraveling or on the cusp of getting a nuclear weapon." Presidents can act, cajole, threaten, organize all they want...but there's always the other guy (actually many other guys) on the other side of the chess board.

Our current view of ourselves in the world was forged in WWII and just after when the U.S. was the unsurpassed leader, and only the USSR was a military competitor of any weight. Things have changed, but we haven't changed our worldview.