Photo Credit: NEWSCOMSince 2009, the world has been trying to make sense of America’s foreign and national security policies under Barack Obama. Allies and enemies, historians and scholars, the president’s critics and his supporters—all have struggled to define, or even discern, an Obama Doctrine. So last week, the man optimally positioned to elucidate the president’s vision sought to provide some clarity.

In a rambling, defensive, and disjointed commencement speech at West Point, the president attempted retroactively to impose a framework on his ad hoc and often incoherent foreign policy. He sought to convince his audience—and the world—that he has a vision for America’s role and that it’s working. What we’re seeing today, he argued, is all part of the plan.

That’s a tough sell. Our allies are confused and dispirited, our enemies are unquestionably emboldened. The Russian reset failed. The Asia pivot never happened. The Middle East peace process collapsed. The Syrian leader once embraced as a “reformer” has slaughtered more than 150,000 of his own people. Libya is a mess. Iraq is regressing. Obama’s own top intelligence officials acknowledge that al Qaeda is amassing territory and gaining strength.

Rather than defend or explain these policy failures, the president chose instead to attack critics, real and imaginary. He challenged “critics who think military intervention is the only way for America to avoid looking weak,” though no one actually thinks this. He rejected as “naïve and unsustainable” any “strategy that involves invading every country that harbors terrorist networks” despite the fact that there are no advocates for such a strategy.

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