US plays Monopoly, Russia plays chess

David P. Goldman, Asia Times, September 16, 2013

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Excerpt:

After 12 years of writing on foreign policy in this space, I have nothing more to say. The Obama administration has handed the strategic initiative to countries whose policy-making proceeds behind a wall of opacity. Robert Frost's words come to mind:

As for the evil tidings
Belshazzar's overthrow
Why hurry to tell Belshazzar
What he soon enough will know?

Or - as in Robin Williams' old nightclub impression of then president Jimmy Carter addressing the nation on the eve of World War III: "That's all, good night, you're on your own." 

David P. Goldman is Senior Fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.