A new Rand Corporation study takes a crowbar to the Bush Doctrine of preventive war as counterterrorism strategy. At the risk of running afoul of the AP’s no-blogger rules, Barry Schweid reports:

Its report said that the use of military force by the United States or other countries should be reserved for quelling large, well-armed and well-organized insurgencies, and that American officials should stop using the term "war on terror" and replace it with "counterterrorism."

"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests there is no battlefield solution to terrorism," said Seth Jones, the lead author of the study and a Rand political scientist.

The Rand study is Pentagon-funded, by the way. You remember when George Bush cynically described this basic insight as proof positive of John Kerry’s unworthiness to be president. That turned out real well, didn’t it?