OBAMA LITE:

There's an old political joke that goes like this: "They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we'd be at war in Vietnam within a year. Well sure enough, I voted for Goldwater and now a year later we're at war in Vietnam!"

Everything old is new again. Try this one: "They told me that if I voted for Clinton, we'd be at war with Syria within a year. Well sure enough, I voted for Clinton and less than a year later, we're at war in Syria!"

Before President Trump took office, he didn't want to intervene militarily in Syria in part because he wanted to avoid a confrontation with Russia and focus on ISIS instead. "I don't like [Syrian President Bashar] Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS," Trump argued during his second debate with Hillary Clinton. "Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. ... I think you have to knock out ISIS."

Then the president started bombing Syria in April. Now Russia has reacted to the downing of a Syrian aircraft by warning coalition airplanes and drones that they're fair game to be targeted if they fly west of the Euphrates river. That includes America's aircrafts.

Hopefully, a crisis between two nuclear-armed powers will be averted. But Trump campaigned on a less interventionist foreign policy, eschewing destabilizing regime change, nation-building, and policing the world. He has governed by deepening our involvement in Syria and giving his defense secretary the authority to set troop levels in our 16-year war in Afghanistan.

Tweet   @brothersjudd