Susan Rice as UN Ambassador

If the news is accurate and Susan Rice does end up as US Ambassador to the UN, it will again illustrate that President-elect Obama is committed to including a diverse range of voices in his foreign policy team. Rice was a key early Obama supporter and has been quite critical of aspects of the Clinton foreign policy approach. She was a key spokeswoman for Obama during the primaries and general election and my outsider take is that she closely shares Obama's foreign policy vision. If this happens, I will be pretty happy.

Obama Economic Team to be Announced Today

I suspect all the news shows will cover it. Here are a few details.

Is the Clinton Pick about Israel cont.

Steve Clemons certainly thinks so:

Obama wants to change the strategic game on Iran, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Cuba, Russia and other challenges, he will need partners who are perceived as tough, smart, shrewd and even skeptical of the deals he wants to do. Clinton is all of these.

Clinton may be the bad cop to Obama's good cop. Because she is trusted by Pentagon-hugging national security conservatives, she may legitimize his desire to respond to this pivot point in American history with bold strokes rather than incremental ones.

He also makes an important point about Obama as his own Secretary of State:

Obama seems like he has no intention of doing something similar. He intends to, in part, be his own secretary of state, focused on re-sculpting America's global social contract and working in partnership with a diverse team of hard-edged policy players like Clinton to make even his rivals do his direct bidding.

This could be a kind of proactive agenda-setting in foreign policy we haven't seen in decades. Obama does not want an ad hoc, reactive presidency -- and he wants to succeed.

HH is feeling it:

The team of Barack “Grandpa Was a Muslim” Obama, Hillary “I’m a Clinton” Clinton, and Rahm “Israel” Emanuel (that’s his real middle name! and he was a volunteer with the I.D.F. during the 1991 Gulf War!), with Joe Biden and Bill Clinton pitching in as necessary, would put the new Administration in an extremely powerful position to apply the kind of pressure that would give Israeli politicians the political cover they need to reach a settlement with the Palestinians. Everyone knows what the deal would look like, including Ehud Olmert. It’s a question of having the political strength and exerting the will to make it happen.

I hope that there is some basis for such a hope....I do however feel that Bill Richardson is the type of negotiator that may be needed in an Obama Administration - the question is how do you get him in?

Holder as AG and Napolitano at DHS Suggests Competency you can believe in

It is interesting to see some of the reaction to President elect Obama's emerging team. I have noticed a couple of talking heads murmuring about retreads and the restoration of the Clinton years. Let me make one point in response to that - a guy like Eric Holder worked in the Clinton Administration as deputy AG but that does not make him a Clinton guy. Holder has been with Obama from the early stages of the campaign, co-ran his VP search and will make history as the first African American AG. More than that however, he is a low key professional who can fix a Department of Justice that is in serious trouble.

If Holder is joined by Napolitano, I think that we will see another first timer at the top of an important agency that needs a competent professional to straighten things out.

Competence at DOJ and DHS - that is change I can believe in.

Lieberman and Clinton Moves Suggest a Big Agenda

My take on the recent moves by the Obama campaign are that they illustrate a desire to push an incredibly ambitious agenda over the course of the next 4-8 years. I am sure that there were some high up in Team Obama who were very frustrated with Lieberman and perhaps wished that they could strip him off his chairmanship of Homeland Security. However, they decide to let him back into the caucus because - I believe - the agenda they want to push is better served by drawing Joe in closer. Similarly, the choice of Clinton for State gives him a powerful figure to help push his foreign policy (but remember she will be one of several powerful figures around the President including the Veep), while ensuring that he has full control of the Congressional agenda.

Team Obama has given up a few cheap, but important political points, for a shot at a massively ambitious agenda. That is my take - what do you think?

Creating a Torture Commission

I have been a proponent of a Torture Commission for a few years and am pleased to see that Obama is looking at the possibility of creating one seriously. Salon describes the current thinking as follows:

"The Obama plan, first revealed by Salon in August, would emphasize fact-finding investigation over prosecution. It is gaining currency in Washington as Obama advisors begin to coordinate with Democrats in Congress on the proposal. The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed. Between the time necessary for the investigative process and the daunting array of policy problems Obama will face upon taking office, any decision on prosecutions probably would not come until a second Obama presidential term, should there be one."

This is a smart approach. There will be some analysts who believe that the next Administration needs to go further quicker but I think that this is right - remember we have to use get the American people used to the idea that torture is NOT good thing and that it does not make us safer....yes we have fallen far under Bush.

Obama to Meet McCain Today

I chuckled when I read this paragraph of a WSJ article on the meeting between President elect Obama and Sen. McCain:

One senior McCain adviser said he suspects Sen. McCain will use Monday's meeting to press Mr. Obama not to withdraw U.S. forces precipitously from Iraq. The adviser added it would be "very damaging" to Mr. Obama to have Sen. McCain "out there as a critic" on national security and foreign policy.

It strikes me that the aide to Sen. McCain did not get the memo - Obama's view on national security prevailed during this election cycle. The country agrees with him on both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, I am impressed that this meeting is happening so quickly and think that this has a lot to do with issues such as energy/environment in particular as well as immigration reform further down the road - the country needs bipartisan work on these issues and Obama is clearly building support for such action.

Gates at Defense

Many progressive pundits are worried about the retention of Mr. Gates at the Pentagon. This nervousness will increase as the odds on his retention grow shorter. I noticed that Josh M, who has been following the matter closely had this to say today:

I don't know anyone more wired about what's going on in the foreign policy and national security world than Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report, a DC insider sheet on foreign & defense policy and international trade. And in tonight's edition he seems quite confident that Gates is staying on at the Pentagon "well into next year, if not also through completion of the pivot from Iraq to Afghanistan/Pakistan."

Josh noted yesterday that "One thing to understand about Bob Gates is that he's a Scowcroft guy." Josh noted the importance of this by pointing out that Scowcroft has been

"...n an important player, far in the background and not for public consumption, in the Obama world. Remember, Hagel, who's sort of been Obama's Joe Lieberman (in the good sense) is very close to Scowcroft. He and Powell are close too. He's the guy who brings all this stuff together."

It is also important to remember that Gates was a member of the Iraq Study Group. Why is that important? Well consider this recommendation from the ISG:

RECOMMENDATION 9: Under the aegis of the New Diplomatic Offensive and the Support Group, the United States should engage directly with Iran and Syria in order to try to obtain their commitment to constructive policies toward Iraq and other regional issues. In engaging Syria and Iran, the United States should consider incentives, as well as disincentives, in seeking constructive results.

That strikes me as being in step with Obama's foreign Policy.

I see the Gates retention as a move designed to assist Obama move forward on a tough engagement with Iran - something that should have bipartisan support.

Closing Gitmo

The transition period has been full of interesting rumor and counter-rumor. One story that is picking up momentum is focused on the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Human rights activists, foreign policy advisors and ordinary citizens have been pushing for its closure for a number of years. Finally, with the election of Obama as President, we may be seeing the removal of this black stain on the image of our country.

Peter Finn, in an A1 story for the Washington Post, noted that the Obama Administration was going to make a review of all 250 or so Gitmo cases a priority and that they wanted to move rapidly to shut it down. This portion of the story captured things well:

Announcing the closure of the controversial detention facility would be among the most potent signals the incoming administration could send of its sharp break with the Bush era, according to the advisers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the president-elect. They believe the move would create a global wave of diplomatic and popular goodwill that could accelerate the transfer of some detainees to other countries.

I believe that Obama understands that Gitmo needs to be shut down - he was spoken out powerfully on this issue in the past. Now he needs support from the American public as his Administration looks to act. Many activists will push for action on Gitmo on day 1 (see this ACLU campaign for e.g.) - I don't need to see this happen on day 1 - I'll settle for the first 100 days.

Elections Have Consequences

Elections have consequences. That is a reality in this and any other democracy. With that in mind I want to welcome you to my humble little area of the political blogosphere where I will try to track whether the new President is succeeding in pushing through his agenda. As the title of the blog makes clear, I believe that President elect Obama has a mandate - he now has to use it.