U.S. President Barack Obama claims that the United States is on the right side of history, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disagrees. In a speech to the U.N., Lavrov said that U.S.-led military involvement in countries like Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan ended in an unfortunate way for Washington, according to Ria Novosti. He also suggested that the U.S. would do better to give up on the concept of its own exceptionalism.

Bullseye! [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

The Russian minister was speaking the plain truth, which this writer has elaborated on many times: Washington has a penchant for making a bad situation worse.

But what about Obama's new venture in Iraq and Syria?

Obama made a swift leap from "no strategy yet" to a full battle plan against the Islamic State: systematic air strikes against IS in both Iraq and Syria; training and equipping Iraqi security forces and "moderate" Syrian rebels; humanitarian assistance to those displaced in both countries; coordinated international action to stop the flow of foreign fighters and money to the militants; and countermessaging against IS propaganda.

It sounds alright, but in fact, it is full of contradictions.

Obama said on Sept. 10, "America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat." The coalition members in U.S. air strikes against IS targets in Syria turned out to be the Gulf monarchies: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar. It is well known that the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have long bankrolled jihadi extremists, including IS.

What is more, it is now known that the Saudi government was deeply involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., as revealed by those who had access to a classified 28-page segment of the 9/11 Commission report which is still kept under wraps by the Obama administration.