Goodbye to all that

Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 against America's campaign in Iraq, which he claimed had taken resources away from the "necessary war" in Afghanistan. So he pulled US forces out of Iraq, where the war had been won, and by 2012 was doing the same in Afghanistan. As a result, both countries have been ceded to the bad guys.

Now he's sending troops back to Iraq and ordering US warplanes to bomb the Islamic State, not only in Iraq but also in Syria! (The less said about his manifold bumbles in Syria, the better.)

Libya, where Mr Obama formulated his famous "leading from behind" doctrine, has likewise sunk into the morass. Chinese pilots feel free to harass American reconnaissance planes. Ukraine has basically surrendered to the Russian troops who came to the rescue of those beleaguered "separatists" who among other tricks shot down a Boeing 777 airliner and got away with it. Iran continues to develop its nuclear bomb, and the Palestinians to wage their war of extermination against Israel.

"The tide of war is receding," Mr. Obama told the UN, less than three years ago. He truly believed that if the United States stopped making war, then war itself would have to stop. Rarely in the history of the American presidency has there been an individual who did so much to damage the country that trusted him to lead it.