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. The direct costs to the U.S. of all these bad decisions have so far been limited, but they are all costs that the U.S. didn't need to pay for wars that we shouldn't have been fighting. This is why I have difficulty crediting Obama as a "reluctant" hawk when someone genuinely reluctant to resort to force would not have involved the U.S. in any of these conflicts.