The simple answer would be to regard them as delusional — insane, stupid, venal, avaricious, in various mixtures. It’s more interesting to construct a set of premises from which it follows that the policies are indeed a success — and then to hypothesize that these premises (which are not ours) are the standards by which they evaluate their actions.

If, for example, you think long-term — decades, not years — and your goal is control, if you’re confident of your ultimate military, economic and cyber-power, then the current instabilities are just steps along the path, heading in the right direction.

This would also explain why the Neocons and Neoneocons are impervious to the kind of criticism that regards the current situation as ‘failure’ as opposed to success.

A short while ago in a comment to a ‘take down’ article from Slate by Farad Majoo . I took exception to the manner in which tech columnist Manjoo in his article went about ‘dissing’ Snowden while using information Snowden himself offered about his qualifications and education.
” It seems like ‘a put down’ but perhaps it was really about calling into question NSA competence as they employ IT personnel.” was a view in reply. Umm.. perhaps but I still see it as a stretch especially in the light of comments on Snowed in a similar vein by:
John Boehner. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Susan Collins columnists Richard Cohen, David Brooks, Jeffrey Toobin, Roger Simon, Roger Brokow, Matt Miller
.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/13/top-commentary-nsa-leaks
Perhaps given these responses it is not all about NSA’s hiring policies or keeping its programs secret but about the culture of the nation’s capital as uses it it the main line of defense is to attack Snowden for lacking the proper credentials to speak out against the government. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/06/14/the-sickening-snowden-backlash.html