What, Exactly, Is The “Obama Doctrine”?

Does anybody know? Does Obama? What is it? Over at the Politico, Leonard Nimoy Glenn Thrush is In search of the ‘Obama Doctrine’

At a briefing for reporters last Saturday as U.S. Tomahawks missiles slammed into the Libyan coast, a top aide to President Barack Obama was asked to define the “Obama doctrine” to explain why the United States was suddenly pursuing a third conflict in a Muslim nation.

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser and one of Obama’s most highly regarded speechwriters, ticked off the factors that led his reluctant commander-in-chief to act: Muammar Qadhafi’s threat of a massacre against his own people, support from an international coalition and “the provision of humanitarian assistance” to rebels.

Yet after 800 words, the eloquent Rhodes offered nothing as compact or pithy as the “Bush doctrine” Obama ran against in 2008, a black-and-white commitment to supporting democratic movements and using unilateral American firepower to back them when necessary.

Sigh. Yet again with the “unilateral” crap. Glen, Glen, Glen, there were over 40 countries involved with Iraq, and 48 in Afghanistan. You remember Afghanistan, right, Glen? The country Al Qaeda was based out of, and launched 9/11 from? The country Obama ramped up the US troop presence unilaterally?

That difficulty in succinctly describing the intellectual framework for Obama’s approach to U.S. foreign policy and national security issues has long bedeviled anyone trying to impute a concrete agenda from Obama’s soaring pronouncements about supporting democracy and fostering international human rights.

The articled goes on and on and on, but, the Obama doctrine can be boiled down to two words: winging it. He has no doctrine, no overall strategy, no overall guiding vision. He’s not a leader, he’s a manager. One who’s thrust into the position with no training, and allows the employees to set the standards. Don’t misunderstand, I support Operation Stripper Pole Odyssey Dawn, and will support attempts to remove Gdaffy by force, if it comes to that. And we should make sure he goes one way or another. I’d also support military intervention in Darfur. But, it’d be nice to know what Obama is trying to accomplish.

The Politico also has a conversation about entitled “a coherent “Obama Doctrine” or flailing around?‘ The one by Greg Dworkin is hilarious, because it spends more time discussing the “Cheney administration” then Obama.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.

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