By Joseph Sarkisian

The current congress is among the oldest ever: Sixty-one on average in the Senate and 57 in the House. According to The New Yorker, it is also the most hated, with a poll taken showing only 8% approval. It’s also made up of 81% men and still mostly white. The current crop has lived through the Cold War and watched containment “work”, fought in or was changed by Vietnam, remembers the hostage crisis with Iran in 1979, watched the U.S. cripple Saddam Hussein’s military during Desert Storm -which helped reinforce “shock and awe” as a viable strategy to win wars and maybe cured our “Vietnam Syndrome”- lived through the glory days of U.S. post-Cold War hegemony and how good it felt, vividly remembers the years right after the Holocaust (the “we should have done more earlier” mentality), and, generally speaking, is more likely to use military intervention over old school, hard-fought diplomacy. The point? Angry, myopic white men are running a nation that is in desperate need of a reboot on how it deals with the rest of the world.

Cold War, bipolar simplicity is a thing of the past. MAD is no longer a viable foreign policy strategy. Major policy decisions no longer happen in private. Our enemies have transformed into nebulous entities that can’t simply be hit with a stick and expected to shape up. The “John McCain approach” to foreign policy is not constructive and is rather useless when it comes to modern day problems like the Iran nuclear deal, Israel/Palestine, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, and the situation in Ukraine. The world is more complicated than ever, and our foreign policy crop is withering. We lack the kind of minds necessary to evolve in this era. It’s ridiculous to think that Senators, such as Lindsey Graham, who claim to have never sent an email in their life or a blue-haired audience at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting would know how to eradicate ISIS, reduce jihadist social media influence, or enhance cyber-security.

Or just consider who’s whispering in the ears of the most formidable candidates for 2016. Of the likely Republican presidential hopefuls, Jeb Bush seems squarely poised to make a run. During a recent speech in which he did nothing but assert the typical right-leaning foreign policy rhetoric as well as tout blatant mistruths either by accident or for calculated political purpose, America got its first look at what a potential Bush presidential trifecta might look like. If his foreign policy advisers are any guide, it will be more of the same.

Angry, myopic white men are running a nation that is in desperate need of a reboot on how it deals with the rest of the world.

Names like Paul Wolfowitz (age: 71; race: white), Stephen Hadley (68; white), Michael Hayden (69; white), and George Schultz (94 (!); white) adorn the list. For simplicity’s sake, the Washington Post published a Venn diagram correlating the 19 of 21 names that worked for Jeb’s brother, father, or both at some point. Quite frankly, these names have become institutionalized as the elder horsemen of the American foreign policy apocalypse.

Not to mention that Republicans are not the only ones with short historical attention spans. Hillary Clinton may appear to be free of the neocon stigma, but “liberal interventionist” is the preferred nom de guerre for policymakers with neoconservative identity crises. Arguably, the only difference between the two is the proposed reason for carrying out the same policy prerogatives; neocons believe pushing Western-style democracy a la gunpoint is vital for American supremacy, while liberal interventionists see it as an innocuous cure-all for the world’s many ills. Innocuous or not, both motives can and have lead down the same abyss. Let’s call a spade a spade.

Clinton’s refusal to call her vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 a mistake speaks volumes alone. Add to it the fact that she was in favor of direct military involvement in Syria, and her statement that, “I’ve always been in the camp that held that they (Iran) did not have a right to enrichment”, a statement that has proven over time would lead to no deal with Iran and likely further animosity. If that doesn’t provide enough preferred foreign policy transparency, here’s the bombshell:

“What I found when I became secretary of state is that so many people in the world … had no memory of the United States liberating Europe and Asia, beating the Nazis, fighting the Cold War and winning … we have a great story about human freedom, human rights, human opportunity, and let’s get back to telling it … and believing it about ourselves and then taking that around the world.”

Perhaps Clinton is posturing for her likely presidential run against a Republican party that she must seem to share a vision with if she wants extra votes. Given that foreign policy is one of America’s least favorite topics of discussion at the dinner table and simultaneously lends itself to tasty sound bites, she does not risk much by bowing to a tougher, more conservative rhetoric abroad -including unwavering support for Israel- while maintaining base loyalty at home.

To be fair, it seems rare in recent administrations that any president stuck true to his campaign promises once getting cozy in the oval office. Even President Obama has gone further in his strategy abroad than expected -being the foreign policy realist that he is- when compared to ideas outlined during his first bid for the presidency that seemed to speak of American overreach as a net loss for both the homeland and global order alike.

Regardless of which side you take and whether you believe the pre-campaign fire and brimstone, nobody in any administration in recent memory has ever been good at saying, “We take responsibility for that, and it’s up to us to come up with new, inclusive solutions.” Failed policy initiatives -and there have been many over the last 14 years- have yet to be atoned for.

Still, both sides of the aisle believe in the old school idea that leading from the front means scattering special operations forces around the globe for direct action missions at a moment’s notice, preceded by the eerie hum of a drone’s watchful eye and blast of a hellfire missile. This is the new nuclear deterrent, based on a geriatric premise from a worn out knowledge base - new tactics and technology to write the same old story. The dangers of such an extraordinarily lazy foreign policy must be addressed in earnest if America expects to reclaim the hard-won title of world leader. The days of simply reaching out and taking it are over.

[Photo: Flickr CC: Born.to.be.mild]