This is from 2015: Obama Strikes a Deal–With Qassem Suleimani. It’s by Lee Smith from the Hudson Institute.

According to the terms of the Iran deal announced in Vienna on Tuesday, U.N. Security Council sanctions regarding nuclear-related issues will be lifted on a number of entities and individuals—from Iranian banks to Lebanese assassins, like Anis Nacacche. The name that most sticks out is IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Suleimani. Administration officials counsel calm, and explain that Suleimani is still on the U.S. terror list and will remain on the terror list. But that’s irrelevant. The reality is that Suleimani is the key to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

It is all incredible, but this is extraordinary.

Obama likes Suleimani, and admires his work. As the president reportedly told a group of Arab officials in May, the Arabs “need to learn from Iran’s example.”

In fact, they need to take a page out of the playbook of the Qods Force — by which [Obama] meant developing their own local proxies capable of going toe-to-toe with Iran’s agents and defeating them. The president seemed to marvel at the fact that from Hezbollah to the Houthis to the Iraqi militias, Iran has such a deep bench of effective proxies willing to advance its interests. Where, he asked, are their equivalent on the Sunni side? Why, he wanted to know in particular, have the Saudis and their partners not been able to cultivate enough Yemenis to carry the burden of the fight against the Houthis? The Arabs, Obama suggested, badly need to develop a toolbox that goes beyond the brute force of direct intervention. Instead, they need to, be subtler, sneakier, more effective — well, just more like Iran.

Is it stupidity, incompetence or duplicity? Who can tell, but we should be very grateful it is gone for now. With foreign policy such a low-grade issue to at least half the American population, you never know who they will elect for president next. In the meantime, we have to hope they keep the one they now have for the next four years.

But where you will never unravel any of these questions is by reading the daily papers or watching the ABC. This is from the Australian Financial Review today, with this the heading in the paper, but not online: Trump scraps Obama legacy. This is the sub-head in the paper, but again, not the one used online.

“In confronting Iran, the president, driven by a desire to trash his predecessor’s foreign policy record, is determined to prove himself a superior commander-in-chief.”

And in the very middle of the page, the inset quote reads:

“I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say the root of much of this is Obama envy.”

It would be nice if these people would stick to foreign policy and lay off the pop-psychology. For what it’s worth, in my view Obama was the worst president in American history, both for domestic and foreign policy. Anyone who cannot at least understand why someone might come to this conclusion should be prevented from commenting on current events.