“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled . . .”

“Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle.”

– Hillary Clinton, who as Secretary of State had a role in the Obama administration’s foreign policy failures.