The Democrats Are Totally Unserious (VIDEO)

From Noah Rothman, at Commentary, "Not a Serious Party":

Democrats are understandably enjoying themselves as Republicans flirt with handing their presidential nomination over to an individual who is objectively unqualified in character, experience, and temperament for the job. They shouldn’t be begrudged a moment or two of schadenfreude as their opposition elevates their only candidate who consistently loses and loses badly in head-to-head polls against their likely nominee. The GOP frontrunner speaks in vagaries, frequently contradicts himself, and displays almost no grasp of the fundamentals of geopolitics. The fact that Republicans are celebrating a neophyte doesn’t itself render Democrats a serious party. For those Americans who were without plans on a Saturday night the weekend before Christmas, they were privy to a series of fictions Democrats find pleasing but which do not amount to a serious set of foreign policies.

Perhaps the most galling of contradictions was offered by Hillary Clinton in her defense of the creation of a “no-fly” over Northern Syria. “[O]ne of the reasons why I have advocated for a no-fly zone is in order to create those safe refuges within Syria, to try to protect people on the ground both from Assad’s forces, who are continuing to drop barrel bombs and from ISIS,” Clinton said. “And of course, it has to be de-conflicted with the Russians, who are also flying in that space.”

“Of course,” as though that was a minor detail. This administration already negotiated “de-confliction” of the space over which NATO forces and Russian warplanes operate, but that did not prevent Turkish forces from shooting a Russian fighter jet out of the sky.

Clinton repeatedly insisted that a “no-fly zone” over Syria would, by virtue of its very existence, stop the outflow of refugees over the Turkish border. She did not, however, speculate on the kind of forces that would be needed to secure a safe zone on the ground in Syria in which refugees could be safe. Much to Ankara’s consternation, a substantial portion of Syria’s north is occupied by Kurdish forces, but not all of it is in the hands of pro-Western militias. Worse than the present humanitarian crisis associated with the exodus of refugees (most of whom aren’t spilling over the Turkish border) would be the prospect of a poorly secured safe zone that becomes a kill box for Assad or ISIS.

When asked if she would shoot down Russian or Syrian warplanes that penetrate that space, Clinton said she did not “think it would come to that.” What else is the point of a no-fly zone but to prevent through force its penetration by enemy air forces? Clinton went on to strike an even more incoherent posture: “The no-fly zone, I would hope, would be also shared by Russia,” Clinton claimed. “If they will begin to turn their military attention away from going after the adversaries of Assad toward ISIS and put the Assad future on the political and diplomatic track, where it belongs.” Pardon?

The administration finally caved to Moscow’s demand that a transitional Syrian government minus Assad is no longer in the cards. Barack Obama’s 2011 contention that Bashar al-Assad must go has been abandoned, but the region-wide Sunni insurgency against a regime that killed over a quarter million people and deployed chemical weapons against civilians will never abate so long as Assad rules in Damascus. The Russians got what they wanted from Barack Obama, and Clinton declined to criticize that about-face. So, why should Russian behavior change? What Clinton means by her wish that Russia would stop trying to prop up Assad militarily and instead do so diplomatically is anyone’s guess.

To Clinton’s credit, her delusion was still more concrete and realistic than the policies of any of her competitors...

Look, pushing gun control after San Bernardino is more important than serious efforts to stop another attack on U.S. soil.

The Democrats have disqualified themselves from office. Only the stupidity of large segments of the American electorate will give them another chance.

Keep reading, in any case.