Nonetheless, the Senate may well pass new sanctions against Iran, if it feels Mr. Obama has been too lax in its negotiations or usurped senatorial oversight of treaties.

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey bucked the Obama administration and expressed doubt about administration concessions to the Iranians. Other Democrats could join him.

Almost immediately after weighing in on Iran, Mr. Menendez found himself the target of a federal investigation into purported corruption. As far as the claim of improper interference in foreign affairs goes, the Obama administration and British Prime Minister David Cameron jointly lobbied U.S. senators not to pass tougher sanctions on Iran.

Meanwhile, the aforementioned Hillary Clinton is bogged down in another trademark Clinton scandal. Mrs. Clinton never used a standard government email account while secretary. Rather than submitting her actual emails to the State Department back in December, Mrs. Clinton submitted 55,000 printed pages of emails — making it much harder for those emails to be searched.

Apparently, Mrs. Clinton also wished to decide which of her private-server communications to release to the government — but only when demanded by congressional investigators and watchdog groups well after her tenure ended.

Mrs. Clinton’s implausible press conference last week only made things worse. She proved unable to explain her unusual behavior and seemed ignorant about how government email works and is secured.

Abroad, Syria, Iran and the Islamic State are battling for what is left of the Syrian-Iraqi borderlands after the United States abruptly pulled out all its peacekeepers from Iraq. All are enemies of the United States. But as they fight each other, the Obama administration is negotiating with Iran over its efforts against the Islamic State. The administration has also expressed a willingness to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, after not long ago declaring him an illegitimate leader who should step down. Mr. Obama had issued red-line threats to Mr. Assad over the gassing of his own people.

Back home, two apparently inebriated Secret Service agents crashed their government car into a security barrier near the White House — in the midst of an active bomb investigation. Indeed, the reckless agents may have crashed right through the crime scene. This is after the Department of Homeland Security launched an investigation into the culture of the Secret Service following a 2012 scandal in which a dozen agents hired prostitutes during an alcohol-fueled night in Colombia.

Meanwhile, in the midst of nightly demonstrations at Ferguson, Missouri, a young demonstrator on parole allegedly shot two police officers. “Whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue,” the president editorialized.

Trying to gun down a policeman should amount to something more than a detraction.

Mr. Obama’s own Department of Justice recently issued a report indicating that the Ferguson Police Department routinely violates the rights of black citizens. But the Justice Department also found Officer Darren Wilson’s shooting of a charging Michael Brown justifiable. That shooting was the incident that began the Ferguson “issue” in the first place.

Was Mr. Obama worried about the wounded policemen “detracting” from the protesters’ “hands up, don’t shoot” allegations, which Attorney General Eric Holder’s investigators, along with a grand jury, had already debunked?

All this chaos has taken amid ongoing Internal Revenue Service and Veterans Affairs investigations, the Supreme Court’s impending decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare, and Saudi Arabia arranging to buy from South Korea nuclear expertise to counter Iran.

The common thread in all this chaos?

More than the usual partisanship at home and barbarism abroad.

No one seems to be in charge at the White House. And that has terrified America’s supporters and emboldened its enemies — with another two years to go.

• Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.