In an article in the Washington Post - see link below - Katrina vanden Heuvel says

‘Our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan should have made one thing clear: we have neither the patience, the resources nor the willingness to wreak the violence needed to suppress the regional sectarian conflicts. For more than a decade, we have spent trillions, sacrificed lives and rained bombs on assorted targets from Pakistan to Libya. And the civil wars, tribal rivalries and sectarian violence have only increased.’

Tony Abbott said that he agreed with Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia. Tony Abbott spoke of ‘more Jakarta and less Geneva’.

It now seems that we are pivoting back to the Middle East.  John Menadue