Obama Men & Bush Measures?

Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan have been debating the extent, if any, to which Barack Obama’s foreign policy has broken with his predecessor’s. Ross’s point in his column this week is that Obama’s approach is more consistent with Bush’s than is generally supposed. I think that’s true, though some of Andrew’s criticisms of that view are plausible too. Ross responds here and Andrew has another go here during which post he writes:

As for the impact of Obama on the Iranian revolution and the Arab Spring, I agree it’s too facile to draw a direct linkage. History and perspective will again help. But the Cairo speech – defending democracy in the heart of the Arab world – was a breakthrough. Bush could never have done it.

The closest he could get was London. But the Obama campaign’s leverage of social media and the call for change was echoed in Tehran and then in Cairo.