As Predicted: Obama's Weakness Is Begetting Chaos Around the World

Here is registered Democrat and Obama voter Walter Russell Mead

Could the Obama administration in its second term be making a series of Middle East policy mistakes even more expensive and destructive than those the Bush administration made in its first?
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the Obama administration seems to be locked into a sterile, short-term policy approach driven by domestic considerations; it is following the path of least resistance to a place that in the end will please no one and is increasingly likely to lead to strategic disaster.
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The combination of grave and growing dangers in the Middle East with a lightweight policy response in Washington is genuinely frightening.
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Its poor handling of an escalating series of regional problems is increasing the chance that those problems will cascade into a major global crisis.

I bolded that last one, 'cause that's the kicker.  I provide no further comment except to say RTWT and quickly harken back to what all seven readers of this blog got to read in 2010:

Historians of a certain ilk understand and have made the case that American weakness begets chaos around the world. A strong America, girded with allies, focusing on commerce around the world dampens the desire for bad actors to violently usurp power and encourages peoples to support governments that allow for participation in global commercial activity. Nations and peoples follow and emulate a strong and prosperous America.
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Elite pundits say America is on the decline and they are likely right, but we are not in an irreparable decline. We are in a decline of choice. We have chosen (or more accurately, been asleep and let certain factions of us choose) declinist policies. We have chosen weakness and opted for appeasement of usurpers and thugs. We have consciously built barriers to economic prospserity.
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Chaos is on the march around the world. Eventually it will land here or force our invlovement in which we pay a heavy price. Which way will we go?