Jack A. Goldstone, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Hazel Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University, correctly wrote: “What has happened in Yemen, although predictable, is about the worst outcome imaginable for US policy. That America ever deluded itself into thinking airstrikes were enough to deal with the problems of failing states in the Middle East and North Africa — and the crisis of ISIS — is a notion that could only be made more frightening if it keeps on doing it.”
Instead of stability, the US focused on Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) as the threat, completely ignoring the socio-political fragility and lack of necessary institutions there. America is becoming more tactically proficient at becoming strategically deficient in the complex socio-political landscape of the Middle East.
The US is at a loss as to wielding substantial power beyond its economy or its military. It is failing to readjust to new power dynamics and finding alternatives. Washington is losing its old allies through a natural shift of divergent interests, values and wars.
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