What's also clear is, US foreign policy is not created or shaped by the American people, nor their elected representatives.
But aside from the United States' belligerent and floundering foreign policy being dictated by unelected policy wonks, funded by the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London, Clinton's parroting of Brookings' report indicates that Syria's current crisis is about to be compounded, not resolved, and as a direct result of further Western meddling.
Image: Some of the corporate sponsors behind the Brookings Institution, from whose playbook US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is reading. (click image to enlarge)
The script Secretary Clinton is reading from, "Assessing Options for Regime Change" published in March 2012, also made mention of supplying weapons to militants fighting the Syrian government to "bleed" the nation, perpetually keeping a "regional adversary" weak:
The United States might still arm the opposition even knowing they will probably never have sufficient power, on their own, to dislodge the Asad network. Washington might choose to do so simply in the belief that at least providing an oppressed people with some ability to resist their oppressors is better than doing nothing at all, even if the support provided has little chance of turning defeat into victory. Alternatively, the United States might calculate that it is still worthwhile to pin down the Asad regime and bleed it, keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention. -pages 8-9, Assessing Options for Regime Change, Brookings Institution.