Current trends point to continued expansion of al Qaeda affiliates and their capabilities, and it is difficult to see how current or proposed American and international policies are likely to contain that expansion, let alone reduce it to 2009 levels or below.

Even the president’s most ardent supporters are beginning to wonder whether the Obama retreat from the Middle East has gone too far. The Obama aministration has weakened out position in the region​—​no better liked, no longer feared, regarded as an increasingly inconstant ally or as an enemy prone to blink. 

Obama's Syria policy is a riddle wrapped in an enigma surrounding nothing.

President Obama's belated acknowledgment that Syria's regime has used chemical weapons effectively forced his decision on Thursday to arm the opposition. Whether Mr. Obama's U-turn alters the conflict's course is a different question.

Like most journalists, I like to point back to predictions which proved true and analyses which proved prescient.

If the Obama administration does not declare a no-fly zone in Syria and provide aid to democratically inclined Syrian rebels, then America will pay the price.