Barack Obama

...that much of the public does not understand his ME policy and explain it to them in simple terms.
1) Reasons for not negotiating with terrorists go beyond just tradition. The US often finds itself in the position of funding both sides of a given conflict...IMO, not a winning policy. If we pay millions of $$ to a group like ISIS, we fund their continued brutal activities. At the same time, we send $$ supplies weapons and training for opposition forces to ISIS. How can that be a good idea?
2) As to the solution of sending troops to fight ISIS, the problem with that is that this is what ISIS is aiming to force us to do. Terrorists win by the US being drawn in to their war. Then they can make us the target and use our occupation as a recruiting tool. That is why President
Obama brought us OUT of Iraq.
It has nothing to do with isolationism. Obama has never chosen to be an isolationist...just to be smart about when and how we intervene.
I agree with you that our country will not and should not become isolationist. We intervene and will continue to do so for all the reasons you stated. We are a world leader and we do need to lead.
3) The nations in the ME region must be supported to remove the terrorists in their midst. I think we are seeing that power struggle now. The US can do a lot, short of putting the target back on our soldiers, to enable that to happen...including diplomacy, sanctions, negotiating, etc.
Because of the disastrous policies of GWB, we face very difficult options. I DO think we are lucky to have both current and hopefully future leaders who are intelligent and will exercise better judgement in choosing options than Bush did.