The pace and tone were set long before Jimmy Carter. In the 1950s, as Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles carried out a "containment policy," initially targeting the communist bloc. This involved intruding into democratically elected "regimes" in Egypt and Iran, followed by Israel and Iraq, and eventually leaving the "middle east" and spreading to Central and South America and the Caribbean.

But then, "No one here pays attention to history and real details."