Is an old saw from George Santayana, but if you want to know the roots of President Obama's foreign policy all you have to do is go back to his 2002 speech about the rush to war in Iraq
Obama laid out his foreign policy principles back in 2002 talking about the rush to war in Iraq
-------------------
I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all
circumstances.
The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. . . .
I don't oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war.
What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from
a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
---------------
and here are the conclusions he drew which explain our policy towards the Arab Spring and energy
-------------
You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.
You want a fight, President Bush?
Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil.
It's all there, you may like or not like it, but remarkably consistent from that day to this