In a clear break from former president George Bush's two national security strategies issued in 2002 and 2006 which endorsed unilateral military action and spoke of the threat posed by "Islamic extremism," President Obama has unveiled a new national security strategy which calls for more global engagement and aims to downplay fears that the US is "at war" with Islam.
President Obama also expressed his desire to break away from the unilateral military approach of "either you are with us or against us" established in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks.
"While the use of force is sometimes necessary, we will exhaust other options before war whenever we can and carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs and risks of inaction," President Obama said.
Not since Mr. Obama addressed the Arab and Muslim worlds from a podium at Cairo University on June 4, 2009, pledging "to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims," did the US president send a clear and powerful message that America's foreign policy towards 1.5 billion Muslims across the globe has changed.
The 52-page document, entitled National Security Strategy, distanced the administration of President Barack Obama from the Bush-era doctrine of preemptive war and emphasized global cooperation and robust diplomacy to make the use of military force less likely to be updated every four years. The document omitted some of the most controversial language from the Bush administration, like the phrase "global war on terror" and references to "Islamic extremism".
"Yet this is not a global war against a tactic - terrorism, or a religion - Islam. We are at war with a specific network, al-Qaeda, and its terrorist affiliates."
Earlier on Saturday, the President, while offering a glimpse of his new national security doctrine to the West Point 2010 Cadets, reiterated his administration's position towards Islam and that of the actions of extremists and terrorists.
"Extremists want a war between America and Islam, but Muslims are part of our national life, including those who serve in our United States Army. Adversaries want to divide us, but we are united by our support for you soldiers, who send a clear message that this country is both the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Obama's National Security Strategy has been read carefully across the globe, and he has been widely credited with improving the tone of U.S. foreign policy towards the Arab and Muslim worlds. However, with unfinished wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nuclear standoff with Iran, and no progress on peace between Palestinians and Israelis, his words remain just words. We understand that the war on Islam is over, but war should end in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine as well.
Follow Jamal Dajani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jamaldajani
The real policy of the United States is to paralyze any movement toward the political unification of the Middle East (1) by making sure power elites get rich on oil, and (2) by keeping nations fearing each other rather than getting together. Political unification of the Middle eash would put the world's most valuable commodity in the hands of people that the rich industrialists could not control. Arming and supporting Israel serves policy goal 2 very well. The abuses of democracy and human rights created by this policy are awful, but it is successful. We can hope for enlightened humanity, but I bet the US will pursue it until it runs out of money, which it may do in a few years.
- Mike Prysner (Iraq War Veteran)
Whoa there! One of these things is not like the others...one of these things does not belong. Iraq and Afghanistan are US wars, no doubt about that, but Palestine and the Israel/Palestinian conflict is not America's. Sure, we have INFLUENCE, but influence is not control.
While I deeply disagree with the Iraq war (although I think the world is a better place without Saddam), Afghanistan is another matter altogether. Al Qaeda did attack us, and their leadership and training camps were in Afghanistan under the protection of the government (the Taliban).
While I understand that the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, the Taliban and Al Qaeda definitely ARE Muslim who justify their actions via the Koran. There simply is no way around that fact. There is also simply no way around the fact that Islam, like Christianity, seeks to convert the entire world to the religion and sees this as a duty.
Just weeks after the failed car bombing of New York's Times Square, the Department of Homeland Security says "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period."
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/05/26/terrorism.document/index.html?hpt=P1
Appeasement creates war.
Appeasement isn't refusing to hold 1.3 billion Muslims in the world accountable for the actions of a few. The Michigan militia was planning an attack on the US in the name of Jesus. Should we hold all Christians accountable?
Jamal,
I really enjoyed the video of your piece as well as reading it. I would say also that President Obama has compounded his deficiency of not talking out against the Israeli attack & on-going siege of Gaza by completely repudiating the Goldstone Report & all but ignoring Israeli nukes in all the recent hyperconversation about Iran & Israel. It's not been an auspicious beginning to a new era even though the words have softened, the actions have not. Change? I have not yet given up entirely on President Obama, but the vested interests in our govt. & media have been able to maintain a stranglehold upon our foreign policies in the region, insuring that more messes are sure to come as if 60 yrs. worth of same has not been more than enough wasted efforts for the American public to stomach! One pleasant surprise has been the recent Charlie Rose interviews & The Economist's new appraisal of Al Jazeera English, will wonders never cease?
Thank goodness for your Twitter tonight, it led my family to the breaking Turkish feed. We are saddened so much by the news of the flotilla & the usual coverage, or lack of it, from the poodles. You have your work cut out for you this week, but we know you'll cover it well with correct analysis.
— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel)
Yes, there is a war, and it a war of many thousands of Jihadsts against the world. Only feeble minded appeasers fail to recognize this fact.
is it not because radical fundamentalists and haters of others on both sides of the divide like bin laden and your self pick and choose sentences out of the book out of context and twist those verses far-with the narrative within which they come to convince yourselves of a message of hate where they be nothing but love and respect for humanity and justice?
Different people, even those of the same faith and following the same scriptures, interpret their worlds and religions in different ways. One can't assume a Muslim curator, say, or a French woman in a veil or a Afghani citizen or a Moroccan man to be of the same creed as the perpetrators of 9/11. Unless you'd like to claim that all Christians, everywhere, have supported vast cover-ups of child abuse.
I think that by creating this division between "the West" and "Islam", we only feed conservative hysteria and make it easy to forget that while different people see the world in different ways, in the end we all want security and love and an answer.
Not the many thousands who consider it their religious duty and existential ( pun intended) answer to kill random civilians all over the world from London to Mumbai and New York and from Amsterdam to Bali.
You wanna believe stars are god's daisy chains ? Go for it. But please don't mind those who laugh at this naivete.
I have little patience for those who fail to see that the actions of the American empire over the decades is in no way less abhorrent to the actions of today's insane religious extremist.
How can we excuse the " shock and awe " bombing of civilians in Iraq in which tens of thousands died while self righteously condemning the suicide bomber who killed 35 people ?
How can a nation conquering and killing for the profit of a few be in any way morally superior to a jihadist who believes he is fighting for the liberation of his homeland ?
No nation in modern time has caused as much misery for mankind as the American empire !
To me the worst part is that the American people continue to support a cruel and unjust caveman system of raw capitalism which is inimical to their own interest and is at present slowly stripping them of their wealth and constitutional freedoms . All the while sneering contemptuously at native peoples around the world struggling to protect their way of life and natural resources from a red white and blue clothed predator maddened by greed and arrogance !
Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, stated in a Sep. 16, 2004 interview with Owen Bennett-Jones for BBC World Service:
"Q: I wanted to ask you that - do you think that the resolution that was passed on Iraq before the war did actually give legal authority to do what was done?
A: Well, I'm one of those who believe that there should have been a second resolution because the Security Council indicated that if Iraq did not comply there will be consequences. But then it was up to the Security Council to approve or determine what those consequences should be.
Q: So you don't think there was legal authority for the war?
A: I have stated clearly that it was not in conformity with the Security Council - with the UN Charter.
Q: It was illegal?
A: Yes, I have indicated it is not in conformity with the UN Charter, from our point of view and from the Charter point of view it was illegal."
It's completely delusional to have as your "strategy" a complete denial of who has been attacking the US and its allies.
But basically, the war on Arab terror is not an Israel war only, it is a war for the safety of all Western citizens and even for the safety of all non-Muslims.
"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,"
to see the rest:
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/abou-ben-adhem