Apart from That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was the Play?

Lay off and give the Blob some mulligans. pic.twitter.com/64qSWz3Sqd

— Daniel Denvir (@DanielDenvir) September 2, 2021

Seriously

In a New York Times article about push-back from the foreign policy establishment (AKA The Blob) after the Afghanixtan pullout, there is a telling quote from Richard Haas, President of the CFR:

“The foreign policy establishment did get it wrong in Iraq, where the U.S. overreached,” said Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “We got it wrong in Libya, we got it wrong in Vietnam. But over the last 75 years, the foreign policy establishment has gotten most things right.”

There are SO many things wrong with this statement, including, but not limited to, the fact that this is not a complete list of US foreign policy failures over that period.

As to their successes, I really don't think that minor things things like a trade deal with

Off the top of my head, looking at foreign policy initiatives that were significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it) over the past 75 years, we have no initiatives that appear to be clear successes:

• Russia? Nope. (Created a hostile klepto-state)
  
• Lebanon? Nope.
• Yugoslavia? Maybe. (You know, genocide, refugee waves, etc.)
  
• Rwanda? Nope.
• War on Drugs? Nope.
• Nicaragua? Nope.
• Cuba? Nope. (But I love those trick cigars)
• Panama? Maybe.
• China? Maybe. (To quote Mao on the French Revolution, "Too soon to tell")
  
• Venezuela? Nope.
• Bolivia? Nope.
• Guatemala? Nope.
• El Salvador? Nope. 
• Korea?  Nope.  (Still technically at war)
  

Maybe the name of the Blob should be changed to the Washington Generals.^*

Certainly,the ineptitude of the US foreign policy establishment, and more generally the whole US state security apparatus, has been epic and all-encompassing.

^*The Washington Generals were a team created to play against, and lose to, the Harlem Globetrotters. The have a record of something like 3 wins and 19,000 losses.