In a New York Times analysis article, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes defends the Obama foreign policy stances --
We have longer run plays that we’re running. Part of this is keeping your eye on the long game even as you go through tumultuous periods.
The problem with this is its assumption that the White House is the only one playing the long game. In fact, none of the crises that they are dealing with are easy to understand from the perspective of short-term gains, since the various players (Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Hamas, ISIS) are all suffering significant costs for their current adversarial roles. The question needs to be: where will these crises stand 2 years from now? And the White House doesn't have a particularly good story for why things will look better than they do now.
We have longer run plays that we’re running. Part of this is keeping your eye on the long game even as you go through tumultuous periods.
The problem with this is its assumption that the White House is the only one playing the long game. In fact, none of the crises that they are dealing with are easy to understand from the perspective of short-term gains, since the various players (Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Hamas, ISIS) are all suffering significant costs for their current adversarial roles. The question needs to be: where will these crises stand 2 years from now? And the White House doesn't have a particularly good story for why things will look better than they do now.