Is Gen. Petraeus Talking Some Sense Into Obama Administration's War Strategy?

Meredith Jessup | July 15, 2010 10:07 AM

During an interview on Tuesday, President Obama finally used the term "radical Islam" to describe the African terror group that killed 47 Ugandans Monday. As Fox News noted yesterday, this small change marks a big change for the administration who three months ago

"removed such religious terms from its playbook."

While the president's friends at the Center for American Progress have continued to encourage the administration to sever the Bush-established link between religious zealots' holy war and terrorism, Petraeus (and Gen. James Amos, Obama's pick for Marines commandant) has a very different view.

Under Petraeus' direction, the U.S. military published a field manual for wartime commanders that explicitly linked terrorism and religious extremists. The so-called "Petraeus Doctrine" references “Islamic insurgents,” “Islamic extremists” and “Islamic subversives.”

Perhaps Petraeus, while commanding the war in Afghanistan, is also having some influence in Washington?