Obama's National Security And Foreign Policy Team
By Steve Hynd Wednesday Nov 26, 2008 12:31pmThanks to Faiz at Think Progress for the vid.
Following the S.O.P. of making the leak the story, the Obama transition team has now unofficially officially announced the headliners for national security and foreign policy roles.
Secretary of Defense Bob Gates; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones:
Other front-runners have emerged in recent days, including Adm. Dennis Blair, retired from the Navy, for director of national intelligence; Susan E. Rice, a former assistant secretary of state, for ambassador to the United Nations; James B. Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser, for deputy secretary of state; and Thomas E. Donilon, a former chief of staff at the State Department, for deputy national security adviser.
Gates' deputy and heir-apparent will likely be Richard Danzig and Michele Flournoy will fill the highly important positionof DoD #3, undersecretary for policy.
It is, as just about everyone seems to be noting today, a very centrist team rather than a progressive one. Rice and Flournoy are the (partial) exceptions, rather than the rule. No surprises there to anyone who wasn't drinking the kool-aid that Obama was a very liberal person wholesale - perhaps not what we might have hoped for and looking set to perpetuate the pervasive VSP meme of American exceptionalism albeit in a gentler form, but still streets ahead of a Bush or McCain foreign policy.
And, despite the frantic attempts of the Cretindens of the Right to spin it otherwise, few left-of-centrists are going to be too upset about keeping Gates for a year or so when everyone saw (and the Right are hoping we've forgotten) that Gates was an adult imposed by Poppy Bush's realists to supervise the incompetent neocon kiddies of the Bush Junior administration in the first place. Progressives might not be ecstatic about keeping Gates, but we can see the point - and no, the point isn't praising Junior for his Babysitter. It's partly about stopping the military's desk-jockeys from whining, in Clinton era style, about a President and SecState who don't "get" them while much needed reforms are pushed through but mostly about a consensus that freezes outthe neocons and their Cheneyite fellow travelers.
Clinton, if anything, is more problematic than Gates and potentially the most trouble of all simply because there's little doubt that Gates knows how to subordinate himself to his President's overall direction while still keeping his own end of policy debates respectfully strenuous. Hillary...well, we'll see.
But as Obama himself noted today while talking about his economic team picks, if he'd picked a whole bunch of new faces he'd have been accused by his opponents of leaving the country at risk without experienced hands at the helm instead of the current cries of "no change there". He also stated, clearly, that he expects his cabinet to follow his lead:
"Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost," he said. "It comes from me. That's my job, to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure then that my team is implementing it."
I fully expect progressives are going to have a lot to criticize about Obama's foreign policy, going forward. His administration is going to insist that Afghanistan is a job that needs finishing (i.e. staying the course), not solving. It's going to keep rattling sabers at Iran even as it negotiates, in a classic case of strategic ambiguity. The chances of the next four years playing out without some new American military adventure, probably on claimed humanitarian grounds, are less than even. But his administration will also get a lot of things at least more right than Bush. The first instinct will not be to reach for the military to solve America's overseas relationship problems, massive Pentagon budgets will get deflated a little but not as much as needed, pragmatic European governments will breathe a sigh of relief and maybe even kick loose some NATO co-operation. It's going to be a mixed bill, but that's better than an overwhelmingly disappointing one.
Crossposted from Newshoggers
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Out of those picks I really like Gen. Jim Jones as national security advisor. That is a man who has lived, breathed and dealt with threats his entire career. His whole job has been about strategy and tactics. He is not the type to have to say "no one could have predicted...." like Condi Rice stated when she held that post. If anyone can see a threat arising, it is Gen. Jones.
Besides, its good to see veterans holding a few spots in an Obama Administration. The Bush Administration had almost no one that actually served yet they touted themselves as being the experts on warfare. Don't make me laugh.
Jim Jones is a great pick for more reasons than that. After retiring from the Marines, he became president of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, which looks into alternative energy sources. Thus, he also understands that national security goes hand in hand with energy independence, and can help out with advice about alternative energy strategies. For almost 100 years American foreign policy has been DRIVEN by energy policy. Having him in that position will be the first time in history that an administration has acknowledged that both foreign policy and national security are linked to energy policy, and not JUST to military policy.
(And yes, the Bush administration was pathetic for letting chickenhawks decide when to go to war, and how often. You have to suspect something is wrong when the only DOVE in also the only General (Powell).)
for the insight into Gen. James L. Jones, it sounds that the Obama team is getting the right amount of experience to go with his vision for fixing things. The problem in Afghanistan, however, is that it is not "winnable" in any strategic sense, we are dealing clumsily and violently in Afghanistan and will fail as miserably as the Western powers before us did.
I sure hope Jones is keen on history.
but that isn't saying too much.
you are right, the progressives and lefties have every right to be pissed by these choices--political savvy choices or not.
i hope with all my might that obama's right-centrist econ team was the right choice, that his hawkish foreign policy establishment will prove to be a smart choice, and that his decision to bring on a hefty load of clintonites and establishment figures leads us towards meaningful change...
i have hope. yet, it's just hard to believe. and i don't have faith. trust? ha! trust politicians... umm, no.
show me the results.
Name one or more that doesn't have some connection to politicians, that you would pick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu7xoHU9DA
"It is, as just about everyone seems to be noting today, a very centrist team rather than a progressive one."
This is not shaping up to be "centrist", it is turning out to be right wing and corporatist/hawk. Please, do not call this kind of thing "centrist". IMO, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are the true center of this Nation. Whatever deviates from this true center is either the "right" or the "left". And what I am seeing is not giving me a good feeling.
Well, a consensus of what comprises the current center, which is less right than it used to be 7 or even 10 years ago.
http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/11/the-l...
"Not one of the 23 Senators and 133 House Representatives who voted against the war in Iraq are on his transitional team or even on a short-list for an important post in his Cabinet."
http://www.counterpunch.org/walberg11262008.html
http://usliberals.about.com/od/liberalleaders...
It could be argued that those people aren't exactly frozen out of the House and Senate and are doing important work there, many as current chairs of committees.
Supreme Court To Review Obama’s Citizenship
http://donklephant.com/2008/11/23/supreme-cou...
Fricken amazing
To me it is very simple about his nat sec team, they will do what he tells them to or they will be gone. Here is where Obama can put a lot of difference between himself and Clinton, dont ask dont tell. Why is this importent, it will tell you all you need to know about how the pentagon will react to Obama. Clinton came in and dithered about it, he let the brass push him around on the subject, compare to Truman when he intergrated the services and add in the fact that he fired MacArthur one of the most popular generals we have ever had, and you had no doubt about who ran the military. It is up to Obama to ORDER the DoD to do what he tells them and sack anybody that disagrees, that is how it works there.
I think that the team that has been named is alright, Gates lied to the Senate with Obama on the commitee,and can only give some minor quibbles. The general staff is where we are going to see a lot of reording, call it a purge if you like, but the main objective of this new team is to get rid of all the neo-con brass that infest the pentagon. Many of these generals got promoted under the Bush admin and we all know that it was loyality, not competence, that got you ahead in Bush world. There has to be wholesale dumping of carerrs and dont shed a tear for any of them.
The budget is a very easy thing to cut fat from and it starts with FCS, something that Obama has said that he wants to get rid of most of it. Along with getting out of Iraq and that is a lot of money that can be saved. My only fear is that Afghanistan will fester and there will be no way out or any way to improve, that along with the fact that Karzi is nothing more than a Bush puppet in charge of Kabul and little else, doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence there.
I will wait to see what Obama has to say foriegn relations before I start to carp about it, but I will be watching along with the blogoshere.
your government brought to you by -
the Council on Foreign Relations
the Trilateral Commission
the Project for New American Century v.1 and v.2
The Military Industrial Complex
Bilderberg
the Federal Reserve and their vetting systems
Party has nothing to do with it.
The elite shadowy party overlords thank you for choosing one of the only two appropriate political parties, thus willingly being divided & conquered.
Michelle Oblahblah CFR Chicago chapter:
http://www.ccfr.org/chicago_council_board_dir...
..and Berry himself showing up at Bilderberg after ditching his press and allegedly hanging out alone with Hillary in secret.
http://operationawakening.wordpress.com/2008/...
Gee imagine that.
He's a puppet responding to his strings being pulled, hire a party hack; get party hackery.
If the same two maids left your house in shambles every time you hired them, for 20+ years, of course you'd fire them both. Yet the GOP + DNC DC Mafia can do it to the nation and it's cool. Pathetic.
President Obama is picking folks that he thinks will serve him best in the situation at hand. As it was pointed by Jeff further up...Obama will be the boss...not George, not Dick or any other NeoCon dirt bag. They will have to play by the rules set by President Obama, whom I am starting to trust more and more. If they don't want to play that way, he can always set them straight or fire them later. I get the distinct impression that President Obama will have no qualms about asserting his authority when need be.
The TV pundits are having a field day picking apart Obama's choices for darn near everything. One MSNBC reporter (using that word loosely) today even said with the recent terrorist attacks in India that perhaps McCain would have been a better choice because of his EXPERIENCE! Where do they get these people. MSNBC is sounding more and more like FOX. Except for Keith, Rachel and Chris I would be shunning MSNBC as well as FOX. Some of the women on MSNBC are so empty headed (Mika comes to mind also.) If they would just step back and listen to what they are saying; but I am guessing they know exactly what they are saying.
So what are you saying? That experience doesn't matter if you are terrible for a job in the first place?
Hmm, maybe that's why everyone is criticizing all these "experienced" people being picked by Obama.
I liked the "stenography for access" comment. Fine, let's use that as the name for this time-honored tradition.
I was hoping Obama would do that with Susan Rice. I was actually hoping he'd make Rice the SoS, but this plan works even better. If Obama's first term doesn't go well, Hilary Clinton would be there to try and wrestle the 2012 nomination away from him the way Teddy Kennedy did to Jimmy Carter in 1980. This way, if his first term foreign policy goes well, great. But if it doesn't go well, Clinton can't challenge him for the nomination because the failure would be hers, too. Then Obama would do the obvious thing of kicking Clinton out, and promoting Rice to the SoS position.
(I'm also secretly hoping that Joe Biden will decide to retire before 2012, and Obama will pick Rice to be his VP. Then she'd be in a good position to succeed him in 2016. Yes--as you can see I like Susan Rice.)
My only other comment is that I can't believe they're still freezing out Wesley Clark. I thought they'd at least find a job for him somewhere in DoD.
I suspect Wes has refused to get behind the Afghanistan debacle-in-the-making, for very obvious and sound military and strategic reasons.
Can't have a man on board who refuses to condone this sure-fire, money-making, endless M/I Complex cream-dream permanent no-decision, now, can we?
I just care what laws he passes. I'm just glad they're not idiots like Mike Brown.
The only comfort I have is that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning. The right wing team is temporary, maybe for a year then hopefully we see his true colors come out. The "center right" brainwashing unfortunately seems to have worked on Obama, I hope he can see through that kind of BS the next time the far right tries it.
an obama thread is useualy like a magnet except when its got something to do with death then they look the other way and pretend thier leaders not into warmongering in afganistan in the near future, its like tiptoeing past a grave yard!
"Clinton, if anything, is more problematic than Gates and potentially the most trouble of all simply because there's little doubt that Gates knows how to subordinate himself to his President's overall direction while still keeping his own end of policy debates respectfully strenuous. Hillary...well, we'll see."
Yes, why can't this uppity broad just lie down and be subordinate? It's all her fault.
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