"Don't Do Stupid" Ain't Stupid

The usual chorus of President Obama detractors got a boost from an unusual source recently. Fellow Democratic Party leader and presidential candidate in waiting, Hillary Rodham Clinton, attacked Mr. Obama's foreign policy on the grounds it is a non-policy.

The president's policy earlier got a strange name. Staffers leaked the news that inner circles have taken to defining it as, "Don't do stupid shit." For the more sensitive masses, the policy is being redefined as, "Don't do stupid stuff."

Ms. Clinton said "Don't do stupid" is not an organizing principle, and great nations need organizing principles worthy of their leadership role. I beg to differ. Ms. Clinton, in my opinion, did an acceptable job as secretary of state, but she got this one wrong.

If you win, please don't do stupid stuff, Ms. Clinton (Wikipedia)

It's about time a U.S. president decided to set aside lofty rhetoric smacking of egotistical American "exceptionalism" and adopted a realistic foreign policy standard. Remember how we fought  to "Make the world safe for democracy" and not may years later to establish the "Four Freedoms" on the planet? How are those types of policy statements working for us lately?  

We could make "Don't do stupid" prettier, of course. Something like, "Carefully analyze every foreign conflict and intervene only when it is clearly in our national interest" says the same thing, and obviously states what President Obama tries to do, but certainly there's nothing catchy about it. In this case, I like the negative "don't do" better than the positive "do." For one thing, it's more fun.

Mr. Obama, with Ms. Clinton as a top foreign policy advisor, has made some boo boos, as all presidents have. A recent one was prematurely declaring, "It's time for Assad to go." He forgot that Goldilocks could be leading Syria and it would have little effect on American interests. He also forgot that displacing strong dictators in the Muslim world often creates chaos. Is that part of the world more tranquil now than it was when Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist? Hardly. How's the serenity index looking in Libya nowadays?

We did what was in our interest in Syria. With Russian cooperation and good work by our more usual allies Assad's weapons of mass destruction--lethal poison gases--a true threat to the world and thus us, have been destroyed. We finally did what was in our interest in Iraq--we got out. We're back now in a limited way, a far cry from the days when we invaded the place with massive force over a pretext. 

Soon we'll be out of Afghanistan, leaving the kids to fight it out in their sandbox as they always have. In a strange turn of events, Assad may become part of a new coalition including the U.S. to help stabilize the Middle East. Things might actually work out well for a change now that the horrifically bad guys have come out of their closets and staked out some territory where the good people can shoot and bomb the crap out of them.

"Don't do stupid stuff" has saved a lot of American lives, and quite a bit of cash we can use to better advantage elsewhere. The policy isn't a return to isolationism. It's simply a venture into reality.