You seem to accept a hermeneutics of innocence towards the US and its ideology, fundamentally. When the constitution talks about the right to bear arms, in a militia, in the context of slave uprisings and settler-empire conflict, it’s actually a far sighted stroke of genius. The founding fathers knew 250 years later suburban dads would need a gun to protect their McMansion from inner city thugs. No, they weren’t coming up with extra-historical wisdom, they, like the many founding philosophers and practitioners of liberalism, were cruel slavers, atrocious exterminators, and elitists who thought they knew best. History doesn’t go away because you close your eyes and ignore it. The constitution or supposed founding values not being applied on so many occasions from lynchings to foreign occupations isn’t because “America is an ongoing project, a living document,” it’s because countries are what they do and who they represent. As opposed to pieces of paper. I have no sympathy for these viewpoints because you immediately drop the hermeneutics of suspicion on any critics of the American nightmare. If in Cuba the churches are empty, religion is being suppressed. If they’re full, people are rejecting their atheistic ideology. Funny how that turns out. American institutionalists keep crying.

Pivot to Asia is still happening in part despite ongoing MENA events wrt Saudi Israel and Iran. Turn NK and Russia against China, disrupt Belt and Road/BRICS, Sahel, sort of the Cold War strategy done post Sino Soviet split. But I’m not sure they can get the split part here. It just looks embarrassing and weak for Trump, humoring his enemies while they have no interest in breaking ranks.