The arc of recent history has not bent toward Mr. Obama’s cosmopolitan vision of an interdependent world. Nowhere was such tribalism more incendiary than in the Middle East, thanks in large part to Mr. Obama’s predecessor. Styling himself as an anti-terrorist commander, Mr. Obama buried the legalistic multilateralism that he had taught at Harvard. While the drone program began under Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama substantially expanded it. Mr. Bush’s occupations provoked liberal outrage; Mr. Obama’s drone war emitted a kind of white noise that most Americans ignored.

Source: New York Times January 12, 2017 17:11 UTC