http://lobelog.com/think-tanks-beg-give-us-war/#more-36409

Think Tanks Beg: Give Us War

by Hannah Gais
Hillary Clinton’s impassioned defense of a no-fly zone in Syria last Wednesday may not have won her many friends in certain wings of the Democratic Party, but it spoke to at least one group: America’s foreign policy elite.
Over the past year, U.S. foreign policy “thought leaders” have increasingly turned their backs on the Obama administration’s cryptic strategy in the Middle East. Reporting in The Washington Post, Greg Jaffe identifies several major players crucial to laying the groundwork for such a pivot, including fellows from the Center for American Progress, Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and the Atlantic Council. All, Jaffe notes, are “driven by a broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the need for restraint, especially in the Middle East.” Like Clinton, one immediate policy prescription they’ve identified is the establishment of safe zones—enforced, naturally, by U.S.-led no-fly zones—in Syria. And also like Clinton, one of the questions they’ve been wont to ignore is how a resurgent Russia would receive such a strategy. http://lobelog.com/think-tanks-beg-give-us-war/#more-36409