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Opening up today’s coverage of the Middle East, Caroline Glick says there is no doubt American foreign policy has been reset.

Aside from the carnage in Benghazi, the most enduring image from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as US secretary of state was the fake remote control she brought with her to Moscow in 2009 with the word “Reset” in misspelled Russian embossed on it.

Clinton’s gimmick was meant to show that under President Barack Obama, American foreign policy would be fundamentally transformed. Since Obama and Clinton blamed much of the world’s troubles on the misdeeds of their country, under their stewardship of US foreign policy, the US would reset everything.

Around the globe, all bets were off.

Five years later we realize that Clinton’s embarrassing gesture was not a gimmick, but a dead serious pledge. Throughout the world, the Obama administration has radically altered America’s policies.

And disaster has followed. Never since America’s establishment has the US appeared so untrustworthy, destructive, irrelevant and impotent. …

 

… Obama’s approach to world affairs was doubtlessly shaped during his long sojourn in America’s elite universities.

Using the same elitist sensibilities that cause him to blame American “arrogance” for the world’s troubles, and embrace radical Islam as a positive force, Obama has applied conflict resolution techniques developed by professors in ivory towers to real world conflicts that cannot be resolved peacefully.

Obama believed he could use the US’s close relationships with Israel and Turkey to bring about a rapprochement between the former allies. But he was wrong. The Turkish-Israeli alliance ended because Erdogan is a virulent Jew-hater who seeks Israel’s destruction, not because of a misunderstanding.

Obama forced Israel to apologize for defending itself against Turkish aggression, believing that Erdogan would then reinstate full diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Instead, Erdogan continued his assault on Israel, most recently accusing it of organizing the military coup in Egypt and the anti- Erdogan street protests in Turkey.

As for Egypt, as with Syria, Obama’s foreign policy vision for the US has left Washington with no options for improving the situation on the ground or for securing its own strategic interests. To advance his goal of empowering the Muslim Brotherhood, Obama pushed the Egyptian military to overthrow the regime of US ally Hosni Mubarak and so paved the way for elections that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

Today he opposes the military coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood government. …

Walter Russell Mead was in the WSJ with additional critique of U. S. Mideast policy.

… With the advantages of hindsight, it appears that the White House made five big miscalculations about the Middle East. It misread the political maturity and capability of the Islamist groups it supported; it misread the political situation in Egypt; it misread the impact of its strategy on relations with America’s two most important regional allies (Israel and Saudi Arabia); it failed to grasp the new dynamics of terrorist movements in the region; and it underestimated the costs of inaction in Syria.

America’s Middle East policy in the past few years depended on the belief that relatively moderate Islamist political movements in the region had the political maturity and administrative capability to run governments wisely and well. That proved to be half-true in the case of Turkey’s AK Party: Until fairly recently Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whatever mistakes he might make, seemed to be governing Turkey in a reasonably effective and reasonably democratic way. But over time, the bloom is off that rose. Mr. Erdogan’s government has arrested journalists, supported dubious prosecutions against political enemies, threatened hostile media outlets and cracked down crudely on protesters. Prominent members of the party leadership look increasingly unhinged, blaming Jews, telekinesis and other mysterious forces for the growing troubles it faces.

Things have reached such a pass that the man President Obama once listed as one of his five best friends among world leaders and praised as “an outstanding partner and an outstanding friend on a wide range of issues” is now being condemned by the U.S. government for “offensive” anti-Semitic charges that Israel was behind the overthrow of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi.

Compared with Mr. Morsi, however, Mr. Erdogan is a Bismarck of effective governance and smart policy. Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were quite simply not ready for prime time; they failed to understand the limits of their mandate, fumbled incompetently with a crumbling economy and governed so ineptly and erratically that tens of millions of Egyptians cheered on the bloody coup that threw them out.

Tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorists and incompetent bumblers make a poor foundation for American grand strategy. We would have done business with the leaders of Turkey and Egypt under almost any circumstances, but to align ourselves with these movements hasn’t turned out to be wise.

The White House, along with much of the rest of the American foreign policy world, made another key error in the Middle East: It fundamentally misread the nature of the political upheaval in Egypt. Just as Thomas Jefferson mistook the French Revolution for a liberal democratic movement like the American Revolution, so Washington thought that what was happening in Egypt was a “transition to democracy.” That was never in the cards. …

So, what to do now in Egypt? American policy there, reasons Charles Krauthammer, should support the military over Morsi and the brotherhood.

… After all, we’ve been here. Through a half-century of cold war, we repeatedly faced precisely the same dilemma: choosing the lesser evil between totalitarian (in that case, communist) and authoritarian (usually military) rule.

We generally supported the various militaries in suppressing the communists. That was routinely pilloried as a hypocritical and immoral betrayal of our alleged allegiance to liberty. But in the end, it proved the prudent, if troubled, path to liberty.

The authoritarian regimes we supported — in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Chile, Brazil, even Spain and Portugal (ruled by fascists until the mid-1970s!) — in time yielded democratic outcomes. Gen. Augusto Pinochet, after 16 years of iron rule, yielded to U.S. pressure and allowed a free election — which he lost, ushering in Chile’s current era of democratic flourishing. How many times have communists or Islamists allowed that to happen?

Regarding Egypt, rather than emoting, we should be thinking: what’s best for Egypt, for us and for the possibility of some eventual democratic future.

Under the Brotherhood, such a possibility is zero. Under the generals, slim.

Slim trumps zero.

As for Syria, Craig Pirrong of Streetwise Professor says, given our tardiness, there are no longer any plausible options.

… A robust air campaign against Assad would seriously jeopardize his ability to survive.  But then what?

That’s the real problem.  Perhaps if the US had intervened in US and toppled Assad in 2011, a somewhat stable outcome could have been achieved.  Stable by Mideastern standards, anyways.  Maybe like Iraq, circa 2008-2009.  You wouldn’t want to live there, but it could be worse.

That’s no longer an option: it now will be worse than Iraq post-Surge, and likely worse than Iraq pre-Surge.  In the last two years, the Islamist fanatics, many of them foreigners, have come to dominate the opposition.  Assad’s fall would result in a bloody civil war between the factions of the opposition, and the communities that support Assad (notably the Alawites).  The place would become a horror show, a magnet for jihadists, and a sanctuary for terrorists.

The US Army and Marines have no stomach for getting involved in such a fight, the American people have no stomach for it, and it is hard to justify on the basis of our national interest.  Some Europeans, notably the French and British, are currently all hot to intervene, but given their pathetic military capabilities, that’s a case of “let’s you and him fight.”  Moreover, you know that as soon as things get tough, or at the first claim that the US military has committed an atrocity, the Europeans would be self-righteously criticizing us.

So I have little doubt that US airpower could make relatively short work of Assad’s military forces and government, and tip the balance to the opposition (who were on the verge of victory early this year without air support) but the aftermath would be a bloody mess, and we would be led by a CIC (Commander in Chief) who would have no stomach for the fight.  So I can understand Dempsey’s reluctance completely.

I am seriously conflicted about how to proceed. ..

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The Mere Orthodoxy blog posts on the why the family matters in economics.

Nick Schulz is frustrated. He’s frustrated that economists talk about the role of institutions in the American economy, yet ignore the most fundamental one of them all: the family. With a career built on writing about the roots of economic growth, Schulz has realized that you can’t understand today’s economy—from the need for human capital to rising inequality— without considering the platoons of moms, dads, and children that form the backbone of American society. And the situation is not pretty. The American family is in a state of crisis, which in turn is having a profound impact on the economy.

Yet too many experts remain silent for fear of becoming collateral damage in America’s culture wars. Nick Schulz wrote Home Economics for these silent ones who have ignored the family’s role in the economy. He concludes as former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett did, finding that the “family is the original and best Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.” …

… American families now seem to follow two tracks: those of the upper-middle class, where family institutions remain relatively strong, and those of the lower-middle class, where family instability is distressingly common. Charles Murray’s Coming Apart, in particular, provides a detailed picture of this growing disconnect.

Many people can and do succeed in the midst of family brokenness, of course. Yet the risks of failing are far too high when kids are raised in the context of relational instability. Socioeconomic mobility and multigenerational poverty are empirically linked to family stability like never before.

Family is society writ small, where one builds basic human capital, social capital, and skills. In Schulz’s calculation, family is a basic, vital economic unit—the X factor. Family builds empathy and self-control, which in turn shapes character. Character fosters human capital (“knowledge, education, habits, willpower”) and social capital (assets “created and maintained by relationships of commitment and trust”), which ultimately generates economic growth. You could practically build a formula out of it. …

Of course, any government efforts to control college costs will end in disaster, but last week the president uttered the most amazing sentence. We have included the Wash Times article just so you could read it. He said, “At some point, the government’s going to run out of money.” What’s happened? He has never felt such constraints before.

Saying the rising costs of college are punishing students who have played by the rules, President Obama on Thursday announced that the federal government will take a broader role in pushing schools to lower costs by rating schools based on their educational value, and in trying to tie taxpayer money to school performance.

Mr. Obama, speaking at the State University of New York at Buffalo, said he would cap student loan repayments at 10 percent of future paychecks but also would take steps to discipline students who are attending school on federal grants by doling out the money in chunks to make sure they stay in school. …

Weekly Standard reports the Nevada AFL-CIO wants healthcare changes.

The Nevada AFL-CIO has released a resolution condemning Obamacare and demanding that the president and lawmakers change the law.

“[F]or two years we have sought from the Administration and Congress interpretations to the ACA that merely allows us keep the health plans we currently have: nothing more, nothing less. No special treatment. To date, the Administration has postured on proposals to address the problem, but no proposal to date will actually solve the problem. Our health plans only get worse,” the resolution in part reads. …

 

From UPS to UVA, American Interest says more employers are reacting to increased health care costs because of the ACA.

Even a well-designed law can have unintended effects that worsen the problems it was meant to solve—and a slipshod law like Obamacare threatens to cause serious damage. UPS, for instance, has decided to stop offering insurance to employee spouses who can get insurance from their own employer. The company cites the new costs imposed by Obamacare, including:

-Coverage for dependent children up to age; regardless of whether they are enrolled in school, are married, or (beginning 2014) have coverage available from their own employer;

-Removal of lifetime and annual benefit limits;

-Fees for comparative effectiveness research; and

-Fees to help fund the public exchanges.

UVA officials announced a similar policy yesterday, also referencing the costs Obamacare will add to the university’s health care budget. …

More on UPS changes from Andrew Malcolm.

Thousands of UPS workers have found out what’s actually in that ObamaCare package Democrats shipped out in 2010. Their company decided to drop coverage for spouses to avoid the law’s added costs.

President Obama has been claiming lately that most of his signature law is already in place, and that all the fuss about delays and premium hikes is over parts of the law that don’t go into effect until next year and are relevant only to the small share of uninsured.

“For the 85% to 90% of Americans who already have health insurance,” he says, “they don’t have to worry about anything else.”

Tell that to the 15,000 UPS workers who recently learned that the shipping giant is dropping coverage for husbands and wives who can get insurance from another employer.

A chief reason for the change? The added costs ObamaCare is imposing, including the mandate that plans cover children up to age 26, its ban on lifetime spending limits, and the $65 in ObamaCare fees that will be imposed on every enrollee starting next year.

Rising medical costs, “combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost,” UPS told its employees in a memo.

As Kaiser Health News reports, many of these spouses will end up on worse health plans. …

Noemie Emery sums up health care.

Forget demographics. Forget the re-branding. Forget the poll matchups, most of them involving newcomers who are still largely unknown to the general public.

Nothing will influence 2014 (and 2016) nearly as much as the implosion of Obamacare, which so far has been messy and will become even worse.

Demographic allegiances aren’t always stable, parties cannot re-brand themselves in a vacuum, and the current contenders will be judged, not for who they appear to be today but on who they become in the next three years.

Democrats may seem to have a strong coalition, but Republicans had one, too, in 2005, before events intruded. In Forbes, Avik Roy notes that the White House has missed 41 of 82 deadlines in the bill’s first three years of existence, while labor leaders say the bill is destroying full-time employment.

Last week, Obama announced the umpteenth delay in implementation; exempted congressional staffers from Obamacare costs; and said he will spend an additional $67 million to “educate” the public on the blessings to come with the law that survived the Supreme Court and the 2012 election (in part because it was planned NOT to kick in before then).

It may not survive its clash with reality, however, which was always its enemy and which seems to be closing in fast. …

WSJ OpEd tells the story of why and how a man saved 85% of an operation’s cost.

Every so often I have an extraordinary and surprising experience with a patient—the kind that makes us both say, “Wow, we’ve learned something from this.” One such moment occurred recently.

A gentleman in his early 60s came in with a rather routine hernia in his lower abdomen, one that is easily repaired with a simple outpatient surgical procedure. We scheduled the surgery at a nearby hospital.

My patient is self-employed and owns a low-cost “indemnity” type of health insurance policy. It has no provider-network requirements or preferred-hospital requirements. The patient can go anywhere. The policy pays up to a fixed amount for doctor and hospital bills based upon the diagnosis. This affordable health-insurance policy made a lot of sense to this man, based on his health and financial situation.

When the man arrived at the hospital for surgery, the admitting clerk reviewed the terms of his policy and estimated the amount of his bill that would be paid by insurance. She asked him to pay his estimated portion in advance. (More hospitals are doing that now because too often patients don’t pay their portions of the bills after insurance has paid.)

The insurance policy, the clerk said, would pay up to $2,500 for the surgeon—more than enough—and up to $2,500 for the hospital’s charges for the operating room, nursing, recovery room, etc. The estimated hospital charge was $23,000. She asked him to pay roughly $20,000 upfront to cover the estimated balance. …

Mark Steyn with a Corner Post on Chelsea Manning.

Private Bradley Manning, the strange semi-Welshman the four million US bureaucrats with security clearances let snaffle all their secrets, is now a female called Private Chelsea Manning. Same soldier, different privates*.

Jailing Manning and hounding Snowden is a complete waste of time unless you also do something about the system that allowed these guys access to everything. Manning appears to have been a lonely and troubled individual all his life, and obviously vulnerable to sympathetic pitches from wily opportunists like Assange. Why didn’t his superiors see that? That’s the real scandal. I wish young Chelsea well in his/her makeover; maybe the “intelligence community” could use one of its own.

(*Eventually.)