The Nov. 28 editorial “A hug that says volumes” blamed the collapse of U.S. global leadership on President Trump’s ceding of Syria to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the disastrous record of then-President Barack Obama on Syria policy.

The culprit is the self-righteous American ego that believed, after the Marshall Plan to revive Western Europe from the effects of World War II, that “capitalistic democracy” should be embraced by all the cultures of the world. We have spectacularly failed from the Korean War through Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

Half-baked support for the “Arab Spring” caused a crisis of displaced and murdered people. Mr. Obama was wrong to offer hope that the West would intervene when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad crossed the “red line” of using chemical weapons. The Syrian people could have gone home and continued their decent lives under the Assad regime. They didn’t have to rebel.

Source    www.washingtonpost.com