foreign policy

I am thirty-five now, and I will be thirty-six later this year, so I cannot use age as an excuse any more as to why I haven't become president of the United States yet.  The only excuses I have left are simply not wanting it enough and not having a strong enough get-out-the-vote machine built up in the swing states.

On a more serious note, this is the sort of thinking I actually had in my middle elementary years.  I remember as a kid thinking that maybe I would some day run for president.  In third grade my teacher asked the class who wanted to be president some day.  I was surprised when I was one of only four or five in a class of twenty-five who raised their hands.

I remember ticking off the requirements as a kid.  I was born in Arizona, so I met the most obvious requirement.  I knew I'd be an ancient thirty-five some day, so I'd meet that requirement one day.  Everything necessary to become president checked out.  Well, everything checked out except money and the depth of my ambition.

Now, at my current age, I wonder why anyone would possibly want to be president for one very important reason—foreign policy.  Domestic policy is polarizing and a political tightrope walk, but it is far more comparatively easy.  Foreign policy is a loser's game now matter how it's played.  In foreign policy the choice is rarely between the good and bad option, but rather a selection of whatever horrid option is the least so.

How bad are the options?  Most significant decisions will result in people dying or being badly injured.  Everyone seems to have opinions about what the obvious solution is to certain issues, and they are almost always stupid, because sometimes there aren't any good options.  It is frequently difficult to tell the difference between a mistake, a tactical decision, and treason.  The nation-states you are dealing with are largely run by the most intelligently psychopathic people on earth.  Decisions have to be made based on incomplete or inaccurate intelligence.  Success usually depends on implementation details that are completely out of your control.  Every decision is a gamble, and every decision is a gamble with huge consequences for failure.  What's not to love?

I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to deploy a nuke.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide what level of existential threat necessitates torture.  I cannot fathom wanting to be the person who has to decide whether to embroil the nation in a military quagmire to stop an impending genocide.  I cannot fathom constantly dealing with hostage situations with terrorist groups.  Why would you wish that on yourself?  What sort of person thinks that is something worth pursuing?  Losing a presidential election must be such a gift in disguise.