Do something but not that

This puts it beautifully.

The attitude of much of the outside world towards the United States could be summoned up in five words: “Do something but not that.” The sole superpower is both expected to have a policy for every square inch of Earth and condemned as the source of all evil for anything that goes wrong. The White House is supposed to convince Iran and North Korea not to pursue nuclear weapons programmes without issuing any threats against those states, eliminate the al-Qaeda menace through intellectual arguments alone and ensure that various African countries do not become failed states at the very same time. The United States is condemned for having “messed up” in the Middle East, yet at the same time is attacked for having not followed up this allegedly disastrous approach by intensive diplomatic engagement in the same theatre.

Read it all.

It reminds me of an Italian saying: Nulla è impossibile per chi non lo deve fare. Or, Nothing is impossible for those that don't have to do it.

What the article doesn't say is that if Europe is convinced that it could do it all better, it should invest €140 billion in the armed forces next year and get out and do it. The article doesn't say that because there's no point.

(via Ninme)