I continue to hold out hope that Barack Obama also understands all of this perfectly well but has chosen to husband his limited political capital to use on the issues he deems of the greatest priority.

Even though the usual hard-line elements are “routinely wrong about [the] most important things” (such as Russia policy and Iran policy) it is true that they do keep coming back again and again to win “internal policy debates and elections” (emphasis added) and therefore if Barack Obama were to go all “Don Quixote” against the established wisdom that could well be the fast road to his own political neutering.

Don’t aim at a prince unless you are sure to hit and don’t pull the trigger unless you are sure to kill. This maxim also applies to how a President must deal with the entrenched interests within the American foreign policy establishment.

Of all our recent Presidents, I daresay I believe Obama has a better grasp on the teachings of Machiavelli than anyone else and whether we can overcome the sorry state of affairs described in this post remains to be seen.