Obama Tends Toward Mainstream on Foreign Policy

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Obama Tends Toward Mainstream on Foreign Policy
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 3, 2008; A07

....for all the criticisms leveled at Obama, and his own professions of being the candidate of change, most of the policies outlined in his speeches, in the briefing papers issued by his campaign and in the written answers he gave to questions submitted by The Washington Post fall well within the mainstream of Democratic and moderate Republican thinking. On a number of issues, such as the Middle East peace process, Obama advocates a continuation of Bush administration policies but promises more energetic and intense presidential involvement.

His eclectic group of senior foreign policy advisers includes former Clinton administration officials such as Anthony Lake and Susan Rice, as well as outsiders drawn to him by his unusual biography and his willingness to break with orthodoxy on what they see as "common sense" issues, including talks with Iran and the effectiveness of nuclear weapons against terrorism.

Among the most influential are Samantha Power, a Harvard professor who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on genocide, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration. The general, a former fighter pilot, was assigned to accompany the senator on a 2006 trip to Africa, and after retiring he changed his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat and joined Obama's campaign.

Early last year, as Obama's formal campaign structure was being developed, these "personal" advisers, with no official standing or government experience, clashed repeatedly with the more traditional members of the team. By numerous inside accounts, the writing of Obama's first major foreign policy address, delivered in Chicago last April, was a painful process in which Lake, a former national security adviser, and other more seasoned counselors felt they were not given due deference....

Obama's success since then has calmed the nerves of the old hands, even as the demands of the presidential campaign have imposed far tighter discipline on both policy and process. Although advisers such as Power and Gration retain unlimited access to Obama and have served as speechmaking surrogates in several primaries, the campaign has adopted a traditional structure to churn out position papers on a range of policy issues....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/02/AR2008030202393_pf.html

[OHdem10]

1. Come on, Foreign Policy in the US is foreign policy--no one

who wants to be considered seriously for anything will veer off
track.

Every election is a "change" election. The more things chamge
the more they stay the same.

The rhetoric may be beautiful''''''''''''

[stillcool]

2. from Foreign Policy in Focus....

...a great article about the differences between the two candidates...

Behind Obama and Clinton
Stephen Zunes | February 4, 2008
Editor: John Feffer

Foreign Policy In Focus
www.fpif.org

Voters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rightly disappointed by the similarity of the foreign policy positions of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. However, there are still some real discernable differences to be taken into account. Indeed, given the power the United States has in the world, even minimal differences in policies can have a major difference in the lives of millions of people.

As a result, the kind of people the next president appoints to top positions in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs is critical. Such officials usually emerge from among a presidential candidate’s team of foreign policy advisors. So, analyzing who these two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination have brought in to advise them on international affairs can be an important barometer for determining what kind for foreign policies they would pursue as president. For instance, in the case of the Bush administration, officials like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle played a major role in the fateful decision to invade Iraq by convincing the president that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and that American forces would be treated as liberators.

The leading Republican candidates have surrounded themselves with people likely to encourage the next president to follow down a similarly disastrous path. But what about Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? Who have they picked to help them deal with Iraq war and the other immensely difficult foreign policy decisions that they'll be likely to face as president?
Contrasting Teams

Senator Clinton’s foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor - and her likely choice for Secretary of State - is Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke served in a number of key roles in her husband’s administration, including U.S. ambassador to the UN and member of the cabinet, special emissary to the Balkans, assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, and U.S. ambassador to Germany. He also served as President Jimmy Carter’s assistant secretary of state for East Asia in propping up Marcos in the Philippines, supporting Suharto’s repression in East Timor, and backing the generals behind the Kwangju massacre in South Korea.

Senator Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers, who on average tend to be younger than those of the former first lady, include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democratic administrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navy secretary Richard Danzig. They have also included some of the more enlightened and creative members of the Democratic Party establishment, such as Joseph Cirincione and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. His team also includes the noted human rights scholar and international law advocate Samantha Power - author of a recent New Yorker article on U.S. manipulation of the UN in post-invasion Iraq - and other liberal academics. Some of his advisors, however, have particularly poor records on human rights and international law, such as retired General Merrill McPeak, a backer of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor, and Dennis Ross, a supporter of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
read more...
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4940

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Thank you, stillcool! nt

[Benhurst]

3. "Mainstream" foreign policy. That's reassuring. When you are on a

winning streak, why change? Four more years!