Obama's new doctrine represents a clear break with the unilateral military approach advocated by his predecessor after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Bush tempered that guidance toward the end of his presidency, but the Obama strategy offers "a broad concept of what constitutes our national security," the document said.
What a crock. We had plenty of allies under Bush--including in Iraq. But what Bush initially did was not allow the refusal of some allies to help us (ahem, France) in effect serve as a veto over our actions. When we needed to act, we sought allies. But because we needed to act, we didn't have a minimun threshold of allies needed for us to act. Which is getting more important as our current president alienates allies at a record pace (although they are standing up for South Korea, to their credit).
And yes, by the end of his time in office, Bush refused to act against Iran, for example, unilaterally. That was great for us, huh? So now we will enshrine the need for allies before we act to defend our interests?
But I won't rely on the professional media to interpret the document. They often demonstrate that they don't read what they report on--just regurgitate what the briefers tell them.
Still, it has to be better than their 2006 plan, written when they were out of power, right?
UPDATE: And this is just freaking annoying:
President Barack Obama's new national security strategy will make clear the United States is not at war with Islam, a top adviser said on Wednesday as the administration prepared for a formal break with Bush-era doctrine.
It isn't just annoying that Bush constantly--nearly to the point of annoyance--went to great lengths to reject the view that Obama is supposedly only now rejecting. Hmm, just who said "religion of peace" so often?
But I slammed the idea that our last strategy document was a virtual declaration of war on Islam.
The amazing thing is, I think Brennan and Obama, and all their loyal Obama minions actually believe they are reversing what they sincerely believe was our near-genocidal policy against Islam under Bush. Reality-based community? Yeah, right.
