The world is on fire and neither Democrats or Republicans have a clue

This is why 2014 isn't the foreign policy election it should be

Early voting
(Image credit: (Joe Raedle/Getty Images))

The world is en fuego, with American interests at peril and President Obama's foreign policy failing to stem the chaos. The mood may be as brittle as it was in 2002, the first elections after the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, but even though the country is definitely paying more attention to the world's problems as the economy improves at home, the midterm elections in America are just not being fought over foreign policy. This is unusual, but it isn't surprising: Neither party has a clue on foreign policy.

Democrats are divided about Obama's response to the Syrian civil war, the sudden metastasizing of ISIS in Iraq, and the civil war in Ukraine. Republicans call Obama's foreign policy a disaster, but aside from the consistent "bomb everyone" crowd, not even the party's libertarian wing agrees on an alternative course of action. Oh, and there's Ebola.

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Marc Ambinder

Marc Ambinder is TheWeek.com's editor-at-large. He is the author, with D.B. Grady, of The Command and Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry. Marc is also a contributing editor for The Atlantic and GQ. Formerly, he served as White House correspondent for National Journal, chief political consultant for CBS News, and politics editor at The Atlantic. Marc is a 2001 graduate of Harvard. He is married to Michael Park, a corporate strategy consultant, and lives in Los Angeles.