Foreign Policy Blogs

Obama Same As Bush

Last year there was Jack Goldsmith’s The Cheney Fallacy.

Then, a few months later, came Eric Posner’s article in Foreign Policy.

Now comes John Bellinger’s New York Times editorial (h/t to Opinio Juris).

These editorials hit the nail on the head.  As Bellinger writes, “the Bush administration demonstrated a greater commitment to international law in its second term than is generally acknowledged abroad,” and also “the Obama administration has demonstrated less commitment to international law and legal institutions than many Europeans expected.”  The confluence of these two things creates much confusion.  In the U.S., right wing attacks claiming Obama has chosen law over security obfuscate reality further, for Obama has not, in fact, made this choice.