Since 2006 or so, when David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett decided America needed was an untested, uninterested community organizer as president, we’ve been told America’s conducted its foreign affairs wrong since its inception. What America truly needed was “smart diplomacy,” a phrase as devoid of meaning as “social justice.”

With the election of our second black president,* we learned its definition. “Smart diplomacy” is a series of measures designed to diminish American influence worldwide, kowtow to tyrants, ignore real and burgeoning crises, and pretend there are no groups bent on doing us harm.

We created the conditions for the Arab Spring, then did nothing to assist burgeoning democracies as decades old dictatorships fell. Did we ask Jordan for assistance? How about Morocco, the most stable and freest country in North Africa? Hell, Morocco’s constitution even recognizes the rights of Christians and Jews to be free from persecution. Morocco was also the first nation to recognize the United States after independence. But no, it was far smarter to listen to kids fresh out of college and professors who’d never left college, who’d been recently appointed to polish desk chairs with their ample foggy bottoms.  Our smart diplomacy has left North Africa (except Morocco) a wreck. Libya’s a hellhole (as usual), Tunisia’s doing its level best not to become a hellhole, and Algeria’s still a hellhole but now a hellhole on steroids.

We waffled on Egypt after hanging a longtime ally Hosni Mubarak out to dry, allowing a military caretaker government, followed by an “elected” Muslim Brotherhood government. But that couldn’t be, a duly elected terrorist government, so our smart diplomats prodded Egypt’s military to step in when moderate Egyptians rose up against the Muslim Brotherhood. Our smart diplomats tacitly approved the ensuing military coup, putting Egypt’s educated middle class back under a strongman for another generation.

And who can forget the genius behind our Syria policy? Moderates rise up to force out a brutal dictatorship which gleefully allows Iran to use its territory as a staging base for its terrorist wing Hezbollah to stage attacks. We warn Assad not to use chemical weapons, or else. Assad thumbs his nose at us and gasses his own people. We pretend it didn’t happen and issue another stern warning. Assad continues to gas his people. We go groveling to the United Nations, where Russian and China tell us to pound sand. Meanwhile, we refuse to arm the militants, allowing Syria’s crappy air force the run of the skies, free to bomb militants and civilians at will. After seeing America break promise after promise, the militants seek assistance from other, unfriendly sources like Al Qaeda. And our smart diplomacy’s staggers onward, blithely ignoring the bloody trail of bodies it leaves behind.

Iran? Don’t get ‘Puter started. We’ve completely lost all credibility. Those centrifuges are for making baby milk? Oh, OK. That secret complex you never admitted to is really just a day spa for wives of high ranking officials? OK. Oh, and by the way Israel, we don’t care that the regime has repeatedly stated if it gets the opportunity, it will nuke the snot out of you. We’re more concerned Russia won’t like us if we’re mean to Iran.

And so we come to yesterday. Russia’s watched Obama, and probably prayed for his election and reelection. Russia has seen America’s weakness and rationally decided to take advantage of it. Putin invaded Crimea, knowing full well America would do nothing and Europe couldn’t do anything because (1) Europe has no meaningful military capacity anymore, preferring instead to implement a socialist welfare state funded by America’s military protection and (2) Europe stupidly made itself dependent on Russian natural gas. Putin was right. Afterwards, Russia invaded eastern Ukraine, pretending its troops were average Ivan Ivanovs who spontaneously rose up to throw off the shackles of an oppressive Western government. Never mind that the “rebels” all had gleaming new and high tech Russian arms. Emboldened, Putin pressed on, leading to yesterday’s seemingly inadvertent but totally predictable catastrophe wherein pro-Russian “rebels” armed with Russian surface to air missiles (and possibly aided by the Russian military itself) shot down a civilian airliner.

America’s foreign policy is a disaster. President Obama has been unserious on the issue since his first day in office. He’s offended our allies and emboldened our enemies. He’s delegated foreign policy to two singularly lousy Secretaries of State, Mrs. Bill Clinton and Mr. Teresa Heinz Kerry. These numbnuts couldn’t manage a Dairy Queen much less run foreign policy for the strongest nation on Earth.

America’s foreign policy should be based in realism. America will take foreign leaders at their word. If you want to say you’re going to destroy America, the Great Satan, we will respond accordingly. If you say Israel, our great ally, has no right to exist, America will respond accordingly. “Accordingly” can range from diplomatic sanctions to disappearing close family members to cyberwar to outright war. America won’t telegraph what “accordingly” means in your case. You’ll find out soon enough. Don’t mess with America, you won’t like the results.

We should reward our allies lavishly with support, diplomatic, financial and military. We should also reward those who remain neutral toward us with increased trade and closer ties.

America: no greater friend, no worse enemy.

Foreign policy is not difficult in concept. It’s not rocket science. You play by the rules of the game your opponent is playing, not by the rules of the game you wish you were playing. It’s like pretending you’re playing Candyland while your opponent is playing Stratego. You’re going to get your ass kicked and look like a complete dipshit in the process.

Mission accomplished, Mr. President. You’ve weakened a great nation, squandering its hard-won credibility and made the world significantly less safe for at least the next fifty years.

* For you Millennials who believe history started with your birth and is dedicated to extolling the beauty and genius that is smart phone culture, William Jefferson Clinton was in fact our first black president, at least according to Toni Morrison.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.