Remember back when our operations in Yemen were the model for how Barack Obama was going to wage bloody war on ISIS:

This counterterrorism campaign will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out [the Islamic State] wherever they exist, using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground. This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.

After the government, to the extent that Yemen has ever had a government, was overthrown by tribal militias loyal to Iran things started to be “un-successful.” First, we, along with the UK and other nations, suspended operations at our embassy

The decision came hours after the US state department said it had decided to suspend operations at its embassy in the capital.

“Recent unilateral actions disrupted the political transition process in Yemen, creating the risk that renewed violence would threaten Yemenis and the diplomatic community in Sanaa,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

But the best part of this “successful” strategy was still to come:

The actions come after the United States, along with Britain, suspended operations at their embassies and moved out staffers because of the instability in Yemen.

According to the official, the Houthis seized many U.S. Marines’ weapons at the airport, and the American troops also handed over some to random airport officials.

You read that correctly. The USMC security detachment for the embassy in Yemen handed over their vehicles and weapons before they were able to depart. The military is doing the best it can to hold this particular pig down and put lipstick on it but int the process they reveal just how chaotic the management of foreign policy has become under Obama:

The Marine security detachment guarding the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen left no operational weapons behind as troops evacuated the country, a senior Marine official with knowledge of the movement told Marine Corps Times.

Officials with the Sanaa airport told the Associated Press earlier today that Houthi rebels seized more than 25 official U.S. vehicles in the wake of the hasty departure of embassy staff, some with personal weapons left inside.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters that the embassy’s Marine security guard detachment destroyed larger weapons, including machine guns, and added that he believed they had turned over personal weapons to Yemeni officials because they could not take them on commercial flights.

But the Marine official, who asked that he not be identified because he was unauthorized to discuss the situation, said no working Marine weapons, whether crew-served or personal rifles and sidearms, were seized or handed over as the troops departed.

This is a bull**** excuse that one would expect to come out of the State Department, not out of the USMC.

1. Why was a commercial flight used? Was the USAF busy bowling or taking LGBT sensitivity training?

2. Seriously, we are expected to believe they just dropped their weapons because they weren’t allowed to take them on a commercial airliner? Hadn’t anyone in Yemen ever flown commercial before? Why weren’t they stowed int the baggage compartment?

3. You destroy your crew served weapons when you are retreating or before you surrender. Otherwise you take your sh** with you.

4. When the poor schmuck they sent out to tell this Brian-Williams-esque tale says the weapons were inoperable, he doesn’t tell you that a lack of weapons isn’t one of the problems facing Yemen. While this might be a moral victory in some quarters when you have to leave your weapon behind you’ve been beaten.

This only happened because it was directed by Iran. They did it to prove a point to other nations in the region that we are weak. This is what happens when you are neither feared nor respected.

Over and over I think we’ve reached “rock bottom” in foreign and national security policy because then we could start the 12-step recovery process. But it is clear from this shameful event, a permanent stain on American arms, that we have a long way to go and Barack Obama intends to make us reach it. At some future date when another commission is investigating a major terror attack on US soil they will look at this event as one of the underlying causes.