US President Barack Obama's new national security doctrine will make clear that the United States does not consider itself to be at war with Islam, a top adviser said Wednesday. The White House on Thursday plans to roll out Obama's first formal declaration of national security goals, which are expected to deviate sharply from the go-it-alone approach of the Bush era that included justification for pre-emptive war and alienated many in the Muslim world. Previewing parts of the document, John Brennan, Obama's leading counterterrorism adviser, said: “We have never been and will never be at war with Islam.” “The president's strategy is unequivocal with regard to our posture - the United States of America is at war. We are at war against Al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates,” he said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.Brennan said curbing the growing threat of “homegrown” terrorism would be a top priority, along with boosting defenses against lone Al-Qaeda recruits who hold foreign passports that allow them to enter the United States with little to no screening.“The president's national security strategy explicitly recognizes the threat to the United States posed by individuals radicalized here at home,” he said. Obama's revised approach is expected to implicitly repudiate the 2002 “Bush Doctrine” asserting the right to wage pre-emptive war against countries and terrorist groups deemed a threat to the US. “We will take the fight to Al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates wherever they plot and train - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond,” Brennan said. “We will not simply degrade Al-Qaeda's capabilities or simply prevent terrorist attacks against our country or citizens, we will not merely respond after the fact, after an attack that has been attempted,” Brennan said.
