In the World of Obama, There is War Without End

President Barack Obama is briefed on the situation in Libya during a secure conference call with National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, right, Chief of Staff Bill Daley, left, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham, and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, March 20, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

Obama phones in his war in Libya.

Writing in The American Conservative, Daniel Larison outlines Barack Obama’s shocking wars-without-end foreign policy disgrace.

Earlier this week, I said that Obama’s legacy was war without end.

I said that because I think that will be his most enduring foreign policy legacy, and because it is the part of his record that receives relatively little attention. What I didn’t mention in the previous post was that every war that the U.S. started or joined on Obama’s watch was not necessary for the security of the United States.

Obama famously rode his opposition to a war of choice all the way to the White House, but has committed the U.S. to several completely unnecessary wars. I don’t think these wars were necessary for the security of our allies and clients.

The U.S. intervened in Libya in 2011 in the name of the “responsibility to protect.” No one even tried to pretend that U.S. interests were at stake in the Libyan war, and yet Obama committed the U.S. to an avoidable war anyway.

The U.S. started ISIS bombing targets in Iraq and then in Syria. ISIS didn’t pose a threat to the U.S. then and still doesn’t, but Obama ordered a bombing campaign against them all the same.

The U.S. wasn’t threatened by the Houthis in Yemen, but Obama has backed the Saudi-led war on Yemen in order to “reassure” Riyadh even though it is making the region more unstable and it is making America more enemies than we had before.