Rachel Maddow says Obama is following the Bush doctrine by escalating in Afghanistan. Specifically, because there is no threat there, fighting a war to prevent a threat means following the Bush doctrine.
Do you see how badly even smart folks are bamboozled by Bush? The “Bush Doctrine” may stink in the world of diplomacy, but it hardly requires articulation. Every country acts that way. But don’t be tricked—Bush didn’t follow the Bush Doctrine! Iraq was not a threat, was not about to be a threat, was not remotely one of the worst threats to us. Therefore, the “Bush Doctrine” was only a justification of the Iraq war if you were bamboozled into believing Iraq was even a potential threat, which it was not.
The fact that Obama is going to do what should have been done 8 years ago and saying we will withdraw in more or less 2-3 years is more than Bush, Johnson, Truman, or Nixon ever did and there is a legitimate causus belli in Afghanistan that never existed in Iraq, Vietnam or Korea. It is, essentially, the Bush I/Powell Doctrine: overwhelming force, do the job, get the fuck out.
You can agree or disagree with what Obama is doing, but to compare it with what Bush did in Iraq is intellectually dishonest and smacks of knee-jerk pacifism.
Polemic® 
The best description of “the Bush Doctrine” I ever heard was some blogger who compared it to a man sticking his dick into a sausage grinder … he’s got it halfway in, blood is spurting everywhere, and a horrified crowd of onlookers are screaming: “Pull out! Pull out!” And the man says “No! Because (wait for it) if I pull out now … all this blood will have been shed for no reason!”
In other words, you assume that the Bush Doctrine is, y’know, an actual doctrine — as opposed to “redoubling one’s efforts while losing sight of one’s goals,” which seems to be Maddow’s understanding of the phrase and very likely W’s as well.
At this point, “declare victory and GTFO” seems the best strategy. It occured to me the other day that “victory in Afghanistan” would look a hell of a lot like the status quo in Colombia — i.e it’s still a failed narco-state with considerable territory held by heavily armed, extremist groups that are conducting ongoing guerrilla warfare against a weak and corrupt central government … except that Colombia has enough of a national army that we only have to provide material and a certain number of “advisers” to run our proxy war, instead of 30K U.S. troops in country.
In short,
LikeLike