It takes a few moments to understand what H.D.S. Greenway considers "success" in this Boston Globe Op-Ed. He credits "the Administration" with some Foreign Policy successes, but then you realize he really means that anywhere that the "neo-cons" has kept hands off and allowed the State Department to handle things on its own, that's success. When problems are swept under the rug, enemies appeased, the headlines kept quiet, those are "successes." Attempts to tackle problems, deal with the most intractable leaders and situations - failures.

The item starts badly, with a run of dubious statements:

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Opinion / Op-ed / US policy successes in Asia

Let's see what Greenway counts as a success, so that we can get a sense of how seriously we should take his tally of failures:

So, rebuking Taiwan for "flirting with independence" in order to keep cozy with Red China is an item in the plus column for Greenway. Should it be? Regretably necessary realpolitik, maybe, but absolutely nothing to be proud of. Certainly not something you'd put in bold-face on a resume.

What's one of the big reasons for some of America's failures? Greenway asks and answers:

Solomonia readers know this, but I thought I'd point out that Cuba is in neither Europe nor the Middle East. Putting that aside, you see that our problem is that those two groups have constituencies who a) Understand the details of the various situations, b) Have desired and understandable, statable goals (They are, to use the terminology of Greenway's demonology, "ideologues." Which means in this case that they have principles and values - perish the thought.), and c) The focus they shine on their issues disallows the sweeping under the rug of their concerns. The light they shine prevents an administration from simply cozying up to the dictators and appeasing the demagogues. For those who are fans of State's approach, who prefer that issues be out of sight and out of mind, "uppity" interest groups are anathema.