The Obama administration’s first National Security Strategy—the bedrock executive branch statement of principles, intentions, and methods for ensuring American security—has leaked. It is the first NSS since the Bush administration released one in March 2006, and if it has a single constant theme, running through the pages of diplomatic boilerplate and dry technocratic discussion on themes from foreign and military policy to economic growth, sustainable development, and cyberspace, it is this: “To succeed, we must face the world as it is.”

“Our close friend” Israel (and our “unshakable commitment to its security) of course comes up, though not at center stage. Most notable, I think, is the absence of more than the barest hint of “linkage,” the doctrine which states that the continued irresolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is harmful to U.S. interests in the region. It doesn’t really show up.

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