the real issues at stake - the unanticipated costs of serial blowback and the failure of the "humanitarian" regime change model. That's an irony that the Repugs probably don't grasp.
But, blowback from the Libyan and Syrian regime changes, and the earlier covert operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Bosnia, are actually part of a larger ongoing disaster for the US. The Soviet Union's collapse has resulted not in a peace dividend but the rise of ambitious and wealthy adversaries, and further overextension of the U.S. Each failure to restabilize after a setback illustrates how little real power we still have to effect outcomes in the MENA region and South Asia. Like the Russians before us, our interventions only weaken us and show the rest of the world just how vulnerable and rusted out we have become. The American people are the only ones fooled by all the secrecy and disinformation that goes along with these operations.
We are only beginning to feel the real domino effect - serial blowback from a whole series of misconceptualized covert operations and failed regime changes carried out over several decades. Secret wars never end. They are now cascading into each other -- the terrorists we supported in the Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Iraq now turn on us -- making the situation ever more chaotic and uncontrollable. In the midst of this we aren't even trying to contain the rise of Saudi Arabia/GCC as the dominant power in the region, and the Saudis and their Sunni proxies really, really don't like us at all, in the same way the Egyptians and Persians hate the British. But, this is far worse than the collapse of the British Empire, because we have been continually at war for well over a decade, and haven't even begun to create an exit strategy for ourselves. We can't even admit that it is our "allies" who have been funding AQ and are reaping the benefits as they fill our vacuum of power.
The bipartisan Cold War establishment in Washington now has to operate largely in secret because of public revulsion to the colossal debacle of Iraq and its costs, the buildup to which which was itself a semi-covert operation backed by the same people who are still largely in charge. They continue to run US foreign policy by the same strategy of propaganda and deception aimed at the American people as they did during Iran-Contra and the buildup to the invasion of Iraq. I don't have a lot of confidence that the thing can change course and save itself.
= new reply since forum marked as read