I doubt you predicted ISIS in 2011, and neither did the State Department. I did, and I'm no foreign policy expert. Plenty of pundits did the same. "Nature abho

I doubt you predicted ISIS in 2011, and neither did the State Department. I did, and I'm no foreign policy expert. Plenty of pundits did the same. "Nature abhors a vacuum" applies just as much to politics as it does to physics, and it was pretty obvious that by removing the stabilizing force we were throwing the dice, making a hail-mary bet that whatever sprouted up in the rubble wouldn't be any worse. Anybody who wasn't thinking that far ahead shouldn't be making these kinds of decisions. EDIT: at the time I argued about it back then, my primary point was that our attacks were clearly illegal, the president usurping Congressional authority. The outcome really underscores the reason that we have these checks and balances. If we'd had some real deliberation, rather than one "Nobel Peace Prize" winner with any itchy trigger finger, much of this might have been avoided.