> This seems deeply, deeply idealistic to me--but ultimately this seems political, so I'll just say my point was that it's not clear what Obama could have done differently aside from save face and keep the state department staffed.

The facts differ from your claims. All you need to do is look at history, from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Kennedy to Reagan to Bush Jr to Obama and everyone in between. All embraced these things and acted on them.

The current nationalists want to paint it as idealistic, but in fact it has been the mainstream - and very effective - for generations.