“SMART DIPLOMACY” UPDATE: Walter Russell Mead: White House Fiddles, Middle East Burns: Will Obama Make W Look Like a Bismarck?

The region is unraveling and American policy is in deep disarray. Our strategic options are getting worse, and the stakes are getting higher. When former President Bill Clinton is warning that his successor risks looking “lame” or like a “wuss” or a “total fool,” it’s a safe bet that the Kremlin and Tehran aren’t impressed by White House statements. Meanwhile the Obama administration seems to be locked into a sterile, short-term policy approach driven by domestic considerations; it is following the path of least resistance to a place that in the end will please no one and is increasingly likely to lead to strategic disaster.

An insightful article by the Democratic-leaning Bloomberg columnist Jeffrey Goldberg offers a deeply unsettling view of a Syria foreign policy process gone off the rails. If Goldberg has the story right—and he usually does—Secretary Kerry and the bulk of the White House security team want the President to authorize a no-fly zone and other strong measures in Syria, in part because they fear that American dithering in Syria is empowering the hardliners in Tehran and that by avoiding a small war in Syria now the White House risks a much uglier confrontation with Iran not all that far in the future. But the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs wants nothing to do with it, pointing to the difficulties and costs of the military mission. (One suspects that playing a role in this skepticism is military suspicion of a civilian leadership seen as indecisive and ready to order missions without providing the political backing necessary to bring the public along. The military fears—with some reason, alas—that the same White House that ordered it into action on day one would deep six the mission on day ten and throw the blame on the brass if things didn’t work out and the public wanted to bail.)

As Goldberg tells it, the biggest problem for the administration is that its early aggressive, poorly judged rhetoric that Assad “must” go now makes it impossible to avoid Obama’s looking like an irresolute bluffer if the Butcher stays put.

Not looking so good. I just wish Obama would show the steely determination and merciless follow-through that he displays with regard to his domestic political enemies when dealing with America’s foreign enemies.

Plus: “We don’t see many signs that anybody—not the Arabs in the Gulf, not the Europeans, not the US—has any idea what to do about Egypt’s death spiral, but the consequences for regional security (as well as European security, if it produces hordes of refugees) could be even greater than the consequences of the Syrian madness. The administration does not seem to recognize just what kind of superstorm is taking shape in a region that has been vital to global economic and political stability since the Second World War.”