One of the core strategic beliefs of the Obama administration has been that their Bush predecessors overreacted to the attacks of 9/11 and became obsessively focused on the greater Middle East at the expense of East Asia or the “Asia-Pacific,” where the rise of China and India presages a new constellation of global great powers. This, perhaps more than Russia policy, has been Obama’s idea of a strategic “reset” for the future.

Now, with the decisions to retreat in full from Iraq and to begin to retreat in Afghanistan, the killings of Osama bin Laden, and the buck about passed on the “Arab Spring” – and let’s not talk about those Iranians – the administration is talking up this supposed shift in American strategy. The campaign will climax, no doubt, with President Obama’s trip to Australia in November.