President Barack Obama’s foreign policy mantra was, in brief, “Don’t do stupid shit.”
In Obama’s rendition of history, many former presidents too hastily initiated conflicts abroad with little regard for the predictable second- and third-order consequences.
The fact that poor foreign policy outcomes sometimes still occur indicates that stupid shit isn’t nearly as recognizable from the outset as Obama suggested.
Few Americans could have imagined the deaths of over 5,400 U.S. soldiers across the Greater Middle East nearly half caused by roadside bombs since war planners didn’t anticipate fighting multiple insurgencies.
Fewer could have envisioned the staggering costs, among them: a surveillance state that recast the American regime of rights; the calcification of the imperial presidency; compromises of national conscience from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo Bay; $6.4 trillion and counting in borrowed expenses; and, so far, 335,745 overseas civilian deaths (9/11 times over a hundred).
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