@InfraBlue,
I find your contempt for what you perceive to be realpolitik to be very interesting, because if I'm not mistaken you have a similar contempt for the foreign policy of George Bush.
Bush talked a better game then he delivered, but everyone who decried him and his advisors as neo-cons seemed to assume he was a member, in fine standing, of that ideological group.
Now Obama certainly is a proponent of realpolitik, but I'm afraid that his policy decisions are based at least as much on his political and ego-based interests, as they are on those of what he perceives to be America's.
His reaction (or more precisely,non-reaction) to the brutally crushed Iranian reform movement was classic realpolitik, except that it failed miserably after 3 three weeks rather than 3 decades.
For those who deplore realpolitik policy that has us propping up despots around the world, but who also preach we need to keep our nose out of the affairs of other countries and stop trying to be the world's police...Just what the hell sort of foreign policy do you want? Isolationism?
Are Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan your ideal secretaries of state?
There are only so many options available, and none of them are going to be perfectly executed, and all of them will generate extreme criticism from one faction or another.
