Call for Phillip Giraldi about Pretext for War with Iran

Call for Phillip Giraldi about Pretext for War with Iran


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxCDB...x=0&playnext=1

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:


http://tinyurl.com/5vvxb9

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The primary motivation for the Iraq war (and the coming attack on
Iran) was/will be to secure the realm for Israel (you might be
interested in accessing the 'A Clean Break' link on the right side of
http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.COM).

You can read James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' and the Mearsheimer/
Walt book (www.israellobbybook.com) as well. You can also take a look
at the following from Dr. Stephen Sniegoski who recently appeared on
Press TV out of the D.C. bureau as well (he recently released his 'The
Transparent Cabal' book):


Obama and the Neocon Middle East War Agenda

Sunday, December 7, 2008

From: "Stephen Sniegoski"

To: "Sniegoski, Stephen"

Friends,


Many Americans, in fact, many people in the world are under the
impression that Obama’s policies will be the antithesis of those of
the Bush administration. But his recent appointees would tend to bring
forth the opposite question: To what extent is Obama a neocon? Well,
he is not a 100 percenter like McCain. But he is oriented in that
direction, as illustrated by the people he has selected.

While only a very few neocons such as Ken Adelman backed Obama before
the election, many neoconservatives are now elated by his picks. As
neocon Max Boot writes: “I have to admit that I am gobsmacked by these
appointments , most of which could just as easily have come from a
President McCain.” Almost as euphoric is David Brooks: “Believe me,
I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now sweeping the
coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions have been
superb. The events of the past two weeks should be reassuring to
anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or would suffer
self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s off to a start
that nearly justifies the hype.” "I'm relieved,” Richard Perle
commented, “Contrary to expectations, I don't think we would see a lot
of change." Neocon Mona Charen opines: “Superstition almost forbids me
to comment on President-elect Obama's appointments thus far. The news
has been so shockingly welcome that I'm almost afraid to remark on it
for fear of breaking the spell.”

http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaC..._am_i_dreaming

..

Journalist Robert Dreyfuss observes [ http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13847
] that an Obama administration probably won’t be like the neocons on
Iraq—and will remove combat troops over time (well, maybe)---and will
not spout the bellicose rhetoric of the Bush administration. And there
will be more cooperation with the international community. However,
the central issue of the neocons and Israel today is Iran. And, on
Iran, there is a very hawkish tinge to his administration. Remember,
how Hillary talked about destroying Iran if it attacked Israel.
Dreyfuss writes: “When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early
to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from
outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the
Obama camp than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama –
including Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle,
and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard
Holbrooke, close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of
State-designate Hillary Clinton – have made common cause with war-
minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other
hardline institutes.” Dreyfuss shows that these individuals have
continued to be close to the neocons. He writes “Organizations like
WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the
United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't sell them short.
Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable
under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross,
Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree – and, if so,
why they're still palling around with neoconservative hardliners.”

I think that it is also the case that the neocons have successfully
moved the mainstream in their direction, despite the fiasco of the
Iraq war. Will Obama opt for war with Iran? Though not by any means a
certainly, it is not out of the question either. The following is a
possible scenario.



I would expect that initially the Obama administration will have to
focus almost totally on the economy, with foreign policy put on the
back burner. When all the business/financial bailouts and stimulus
packages fail to rejuvenate the economy, then will be time to make use
of the war card.

Continued poor economic conditions could provide the political
incentive to divert attention away from the domestic arena to wars
abroad. Obama, with the image of being a man of peace, would have
greater credibility with the American people in pursuing a hardline
policy toward Iran than either Bush or McCain, especially after he
would pursue an effort at diplomacy, without offering any substantial
quid pro quo to Iran.

And Obama would be pushed in this direction by the neocons outside his
administration and the hawks within.

Once diplomacy broke down, tougher measures would be portrayed as the
only alternative with an allegedly intransigent foe. Policies such as
a naval blockade would likely lead to military confrontations and the
justification for the US air attack on Iran. The Iranian response
(such as an effort to block the shipping in the Persian Gulf) would
cause a spiraling into a broader war.

I might add that I discussed Obama’s foreign policy picks on Press TV.
The show was “American Dream” and I was on a panel with an AEI person
and a Democratic Party operative. Except for my physical appearance, I
think I did fairly well in the discussion.

The program also mentioned my book, “The Transparent Cabal: The
Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National
Interest of Israel” http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Ca.../dp/1932528172



Press TV Interview Video

http://www.presstv.com/Programs/play....aspx?id=76622

It was the Nov. 25 show. To view you must hit "windows media player"

PressTV is funded by the Iranian government but it has numerous
Establishment participants, including neoconservatives, who are
hostile toward Iran. The “American Dream” is an illustration. The host
of the program, Elliott Francis, is an African-American television
journalist.

Here is Wikipedia’s description:

Elliott Francis is a Washington, D.C.-based television journalist

Elliott Francis brings more than 25 years of experience in news
reporting to his role as co-anchor for ABC-7's Weekend News. An Emmy
Award winning journalist, and former anchor and regional correspondent
for The Fox News Channel, Elliott has sparked compelling and
informative conversation with many top newsmakers and celebrities.

[Needless to say, I was not one of the aforementioned “top newsmakers
and celebrities.”]



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



http://townhall.com/columnists/MonaC..._am_i_dreaming

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Mona Charen ::

Pinch Me, Am I Dreaming?

by Mona Charen

Superstition almost forbids me to comment on President-elect Obama's
appointments thus far. The news has been so shockingly welcome that
I'm almost afraid to remark on it for fear of breaking the spell.

Such reticence has not afflicted everyone on the right, though. Here's
Max Boot, conservative editorialist, author, and military historian:
"I am gobsmacked by these appointments, most of which could just as
easily have come from a President McCain..." Sen. Mitch McConnell, the
Senate minority leader, declared that the Obama administration was
"off to a good start." And New York Times columnist David Brooks has
acknowledged that he is "tremendously impressed."

If I were a left-winger, I'd be tearing out my hair about now.

The economic team of Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, and Christina
Romer does not exactly send a "to the ramparts" message. Summers,
treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, is known for his belief in free
financial markets, free trade, and fiscal discipline. He got into
terrific trouble as president of Harvard for implying that, on
average, men are more mathematically talented than women (which is
true but that is irrelevant in the Ivy League). They made him grovel
for that one, and to his shame, he did. The whole scene at Harvard, I
gather from Stephan Thernstrom, who was there, was like something out
of China's Cultural Revolution where the mob makes the professor
confess error and beg for punishment. Still, if you want a centrist,
Summers is your man.

Geithner is a Summers protege. As president of the New York Federal
Reserve Bank he has been knee-deep in bailouts over the past three
months. But that datum doesn't distinguish him from the Bush
administration or anyone else in the mainstream of America's economic
elite.

Romer recently penned an article making the case that tax cuts can
increase economic activity. Hmmm.

If the economic team is centrist, the foreign policy team (and I pinch
myself as I say this) leans a little to the right. Did you notice that
in introducing his choices, the President-elect used the term "defeat
our enemies"?

Gen. James Jones, Obama's choice for national security adviser, is a
four-star Marine general who was commandant of the Marine Corps and
Supreme Allied Commander for Europe (SACEUR), among other posts.
Response to his nomination among conservatives ranged from cautious
optimism to outright enthusiasm. "He is a thoroughly decent man" one
conservative foreign policy analyst told me. Though his political
views are not known, he has received the "Keeper of the Flame" award
from the hard-line Center for Security Policy. The Foundation for the
Defense of Democracy's (and National Review's) Michael Ledeen, no
coddler of wimps, calls him "almost unbearably delightful" in the two
or three conversations they've had. Everyone seems to agree that he
has high intelligence and deep patriotism. If there is a hesitation,
it arises from the fact that he is, like Colin Powell and Brent
Scowcroft, a political general, and those have not always worked out
so well.

As for Hillary Clinton, well, she is no Jeane Kirkpatrick. While it's
true that she declined to apologize for her vote in favor of the Iraq
war, she did everything but. It was only last year that she told Gen.
Petraeus that his report on progress in Iraq "require(ed) a willing
suspension of disbelief." She opposed the surge of troops in Iraq but
then -- this is chutzpah! -- attempted to take credit for its success.
On Meet the Press in January 2008 she said "...The point of the surge
was to quickly move the Iraqi government and Iraqi people. That is
only now beginning to happen, and I believe in large measure because
the Iraqi government, they watch us, they listen to us. I know very
well that they follow everything that I say. And my commitment to
begin withdrawing our troops in January of 2009 is a big factor, as it
is with Sen. Obama, Sen. Edwards, those of us on the Democratic side.
It is a big factor in pushing the Iraqi government to finally do what
they should have been doing all along."

She has criticized what she calls the Bush administration's
"obsessive" focus on "expensive and unproven missile defense
technology." On trade, she has made protectionist noises. On the other
hand, she is not Carl Levin or Dennis Kucinich or Anthony Lake or
Samantha Power. And that, along with the other appointments, is enough
to keep some of us smiling at a time when we were expecting to be in
deep anguish.


http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13847

December 3, 2008

Is Iran Policy Still Up for Grabs?

by Robert Dreyfuss and Tom Engelhardt

TomDispatch

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…

After all, that massive U.S. air attack on Iran that anti-imperial
critics long expected to arrive, that Seymour Hersh wrote about, that
so many feared, never happened and, with Barack Obama's election,
should certainly have been put to rest in a deep grave for all
eternity. But don't underestimate the neocons, or their ability to
reconfigure themselves for a Democratic administration. Robert
Dreyfuss, author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash
Fundamentalist Islam, who also produces "The Dreyfuss Report" for the
Nation magazine's Web site, offers up some tantalizing clues to their
possible future resurrection – and some altogether eerie connections
between neocon Washington and the future Obama team.

To give Dreyfuss his creds, only the other day the Wall Street Journal
actually began an editorial on the new Obama national security "team"
by attacking an analysis Dreyfuss had done of it the previous week.
("The names floated for Barack Obama's national security team 'are
drawn exclusively from conservative, centrist, and pro-military
circles without even a single – yes, not one! – chosen to represent
the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party.' In his plaintive post this
week on the Nation magazine's Web site, Robert Dreyfuss indulges in
the political left's wonderful talent for overstatement. But who are
we to interfere with his despair?") Given their right-wing
proclivities, the Journal's editorial writers then offer the
equivalent of high praise for Obama's choices: "So far," they
conclude, "on security, not bad." That should make just about anyone
who voted for Obama to change American global policy in significant
ways pause a moment for reflection.

And the Journal isn't alone. Other Republicans are, according to the
Times of London, already "showering praise on these selections.
Senator Lindsey Graham said that Mr. Gates, President Bush's defense
secretary, had 'led us through difficult times in Iraq' and that Mrs.
Clinton had a 'little harder line' than Mr. Obama on foreign policy."
The dark prince of neocons Richard Perle commented, "I'm relieved…
Contrary to expectations, I don't think we would see a lot of
change."

Give it a year and a little Iranian, American, and Israeli
intransigence and who knows what scenarios might arise. In the
meantime, keep your eyes on the neocons. Like vampires of legend,
barring a stake through the heart, they arrive on the scene as soon as
darkness sets in. Tom

Still Preparing to Attack Iran

The neoconservatives in the Obama era

by Robert Dreyfuss

What, exactly, does Barack Obama's mild-mannered choice to head the
Department of Health and Human Services, former Sen. Tom Daschle, have
to do with neocons who want to bomb Iran?

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives
expects Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail – and they're
already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are
meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to
enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and
a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the
pre-positioning of military supplies within striking distance of that
country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will
happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to warlike
measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel
imports and a blockade of that country's oil exports. Finally, of
course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic
Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It's tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power:
first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith
were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then
the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his
centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus
seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have
bitterly criticized the president-elect's plans to talk with Iran,
withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on
Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

"Kinetic Action" Against Iran

When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early to dismiss the
hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the
corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp
than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama – including
Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle, and Dennis
Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke,
close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of State-
designate Hillary Clinton – have made common cause with war-minded
think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy
(WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline
institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a
WINEP "2008 Presidential Task Force" study which resulted in a report
titled "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel
Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge." The Institute, part of
the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with
the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been
vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force
report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights:
Robert Satloff, WINEP's executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief
Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an
adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view
of Iran's nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up
a formal U.S.-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran
(including any future need for "preventive military action"). It drew
attention to Israeli fears that "the United States may be reconciling
itself to the idea of 'living with an Iranian nuclear bomb,'" and it
raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with
nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the
United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed
to the idea that the United States ought to give undue weight to
Israel's inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a
number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not
enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how
to actually construct a weapon even if, sometime in the future, it
does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known
mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the United States must communicate closely with
Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a U.S.-Israeli
dialogue over Iran's "nuclear challenge" will have to focus on matters
entirely different from those in WINEP's agenda. First, the United
States must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no
circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack
against Iran. Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel
were indeed to carry out such an attack, the United States would
condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel's aid, and
suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must
get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility
that the United States deems it necessary to go to war with Iran,
there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the
United States hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both
superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP,
however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem,
not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for George H.W. Bush and then
Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task
force chaired by two former senators, Daniel Coats (R.-Ind.) and Chuck
Robb (D.-Va.), and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP's David
Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the
heyday of the Pentagon neocons from 2002-2006. Robb, incidentally, had
already served as the neocons' channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group,
chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former
Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward's latest book,
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb
who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for
a "surge" in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force – "Meeting the Challenge: U.S.
Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development" – went far beyond the WINEP
task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that
any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any
case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, "It must be clear
that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be
limited to a predetermined time period so that Tehran does not try to
'run out the clock.'"

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross)
urged "pre-positioning military assets," coupled with a "show of
force" in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a
blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to
paralyze Iran's economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, "kinetic
action."

That "kinetic action" – a U.S. assault on Iran – should, in fact, be
massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of
sites alleged to be part of Iran's nuclear research program, the
attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites,
communications systems, Revolutionary Guard facilities, key parts of
Iran's military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities,
airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran's naval facilities.
Eventually, they say, the United States would also have to attack
Iran's ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids,
bridges, and "manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses,
etc."

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a
country that had committed no act of war against the United States or
any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy
Iran's economy and infrastructure, and wreak havoc throughout the
region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose
steps like these – and mean it – can only be described as lunacy. That
an important adviser to President-elect Obama would sign on to such a
report should be shocking, though it has received next to no
attention.

Palling Around With the Neocons

At a Nov. 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite,
neoconservative strategist who serves as the organization's deputy
director for research, laid out the institute's view of how to talk to
Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but
only to show the rest of the world that the United States has taken
the last step for peace – before, of course, attacking. Then, and only
then, will the United States have the legitimacy it needs to launch
military action against Iran.

"What we've got to do is to show the world that we're making a big
deal of engaging the Iranians," he said, tossing a bone to the new
administration. "I'd throw everything, including the kitchen sink,
into it." He advocates this approach only because he believes it won't
work. "The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran,"
he adds. "The principal target of these offers is American public
opinion and world public opinion."

The Coats-Robb report, "Meeting the Challenge," was written by one of
the hardest of Washington's neoconservative hardliners, Michael Rubin
of the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin, who spent most of the
years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war
in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned
a report for the Institute entitled: "Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred
or Contained?" Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a
resounding "no," although he does suggest that any effort to contain a
nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent U.S. bases spread
widely in the region, including in Iraq:

"If U.S. forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require
basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Without a
sizable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain
the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and
Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the
region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical,
basing will be its backbone."

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the
Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to
be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy
director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant
in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Barack Obama's éminence grise and
one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle,
who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So
far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC's provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid
another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new
organization, United Against Nuclear Iran. UANI is led by Mark
Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Sen. John
McCain's campaign team. Among UANI's leadership team are Ross and
Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former
director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-
American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for
the neoconservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to
"inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including
its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's
role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of
human rights at home and abroad" and to "heighten awareness nationally
and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses
to the region and the world."

Barack Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to
embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He's insisted
that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his
approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also
stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military
action "off the table."

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their
mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't
sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be
inconceivable under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan
Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they
agree – and, if so, why they're still palling around with
neoconservative hardliners.

Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Va., is a
contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose Web site hosts his
"The Dreyfuss Report," and has written frequently for Rolling Stone,
The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is
the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash
Fundamentalist Islam.



http://www.commentarymagazine.com/bl...php/boot/44551

Obama’s Picks
Max Boot - 11.25.2008 - 6:38 PM

According to the latest news reports, President-elect Obama will
nominate a national security team next week that is stunning in its
moderation. The headliners–Bob Gates staying at Defense, Hillary
Clinton becoming Secretary of State, retired General Jim Jones taking
over the NSC–have already been more or less reported, or at least much
speculated on. The lower-level picks are just as encouraging:

Democrats familiar with the national-security event early next week
said they also expect James Steinberg, who was deputy national
security adviser in the Clinton administration, to be named deputy
secretary of State; Susan Rice, Obama’s senior foreign policy adviser
on the campaign, to be named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations;
and retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the former commander-in-chief of the
U.S. Pacific Command and a veteran of the NSC, Central Intelligence
Agency and Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be named the director of national
intelligence.

The only outright leftist in the bunch is Susan Rice, and she is being
shunted aside to a post where the premium is on rhetoric, not action.
She will presumably be called upon to explain and defend policies
formulated by the senior national security team which includes two men
who are not Democrats–Gates and Jones–and one woman who is on the
rightward side of the Democratic Party when it comes to national
security issues (and paid a price for it in the primaries).

As someone who was skeptical of Obama’s moderate posturing during the
campaign, I have to admit that I am gobsmacked by these appointments ,
most of which could just as easily have come from a President McCain.
(Jim Jones is an old friend of McCain’s, and McCain almost certainly
would have asked Gates to stay on as well.) This all but puts an end
to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional
summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from
the Obama campaign. His appointments suggest that, if anything, his
administration will have a Reapolitiker, rather than a liberal, bent,
although Clinton and Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for
“neo-liberalism” which is not so different in many respects from “neo-
conservativism”. Both, for instance, support humanitarian
interventions in places like Darfur and Bosnia.

Combined with the moderation of the economic team that Obama has just
named, I would say his administration already far exceeds
expectations, and he hasn’t even taken office yet.

The real test, of course, will be seeing how this all-star lineup
deals with real-world crises. It helps to recall that George W. Bush-
another newcomer to Washington-arrived with a raft of heavy hitters:
Powell, Rumsfeld, Cheney. Simply to recite those names today is to
make obvious that even the most distinguished statesmen may not
congeal into an effective team. That is a danger to watch out for in
the Obama administration, but the new team deserves the benefit of the
doubt and all best wishes for success from Republicans and Democrats
alike. Only churlish partisans of both the left and the right can be
unhappy with the emerging tenor of our nation’s new leadership.

------------------------------------------------------------


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/op...ooks.html?_r=1

The Insider’s Crusade


By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 21, 2008, New York Times

Jan. 20, 2009, will be a historic day. Barack Obama (Columbia, Harvard
Law) will take the oath of office as his wife, Michelle (Princeton,
Harvard Law), looks on proudly. Nearby, his foreign policy advisers
will stand beaming, including perhaps Hillary Clinton (Wellesley, Yale
Law), Jim Steinberg (Harvard, Yale Law) and Susan Rice (Stanford,
Oxford D. Phil.).


The domestic policy team will be there, too, including Jason Furman
(Harvard, Harvard Ph.D.), Austan Goolsbee (Yale, M.I.T. Ph.D.), Blair
Levin (Yale, Yale Law), Peter Orszag (Princeton, London School of
Economics Ph.D.) and, of course, the White House Counsel Greg Craig
(Harvard, Yale Law).

This truly will be an administration that looks like America, or at
least that slice of America that got double 800s on their SATs. Even
more than past administrations, this will be a valedictocracy — rule
by those who graduate first in their high school classes. If a foreign
enemy attacks the United States during the Harvard-Yale game any time
over the next four years, we’re screwed.

Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus.
Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover
them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served
in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to
the comforts of private life — that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at
Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. So
many of them send their kids to Georgetown Day School, the posh
leftish private school in D.C., that they’ll be able to hold White
House staff meetings in the carpool line.

And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons
(not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated
by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by
the Obama transition.

The fact that they can already leak one big appointee per day is
testimony to an awful lot of expert staff work. Unlike past Democratic
administrations, they are not just handing out jobs to the hacks
approved by the favored interest groups. They’re thinking holistically
— there’s a nice balance of policy wonks, governors and legislators.
They’re also thinking strategically. As Norman Ornstein of the
American Enterprise Institute notes, it was smart to name Tom Daschle
both the head of Health and Human Services and the health czar.
Splitting those duties up, as Bill Clinton did, leads to all sorts of
conflicts.

Most of all, they are picking Washington insiders. Or to be more
precise, they are picking the best of the Washington insiders.

Obama seems to have dispensed with the romantic and failed notion that
you need inexperienced “fresh faces” to change things. After all, it
was L.B.J. who passed the Civil Rights Act. Moreover, because he is so
young, Obama is not bringing along an insular coterie of lifelong
aides who depend upon him for their well-being.

As a result, the team he has announced so far is more impressive than
any other in recent memory. One may not agree with them on everything
or even most things, but a few things are indisputably true.

First, these are open-minded individuals who are persuadable by
evidence. Orszag, who will probably be budget director, is trusted by
Republicans and Democrats for his honest presentation of the facts.

Second, they are admired professionals. Conservative legal experts
have a high regard for the probable attorney general, Eric Holder,
despite the business over the Marc Rich pardon.

Third, they are not excessively partisan. Obama signaled that he means
to live up to his postpartisan rhetoric by letting Joe Lieberman keep
his committee chairmanship.

Fourth, they are not ideological. The economic advisers, Furman and
Goolsbee, are moderate and thoughtful Democrats. Hillary Clinton at
State is problematic, mostly because nobody has a role for her
husband. But, as she has demonstrated in the Senate, her foreign-
policy views are hardheaded and pragmatic. (It would be great to see
her set of interests complemented by Samantha Power’s set of interests
at the U.N.)

Finally, there are many people on this team with practical creativity.
Any think tanker can come up with broad doctrines, but it is rare to
find people who can give the president a list of concrete steps he can
do day by day to advance American interests. Dennis Ross, who advised
Obama during the campaign, is the best I’ve ever seen at this, but
Rahm Emanuel also has this capacity, as does Craig and legislative
liaison Phil Schiliro.

Believe me, I’m trying not to join in the vast, heaving O-phoria now
sweeping the coastal haute bourgeoisie. But the personnel decisions
have been superb. The events of the past two weeks should be
reassuring to anybody who feared that Obama would veer to the left or
would suffer self-inflicted wounds because of his inexperience. He’s
off to a start that nearly justifies the hype

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Obama and the Danger of his Middle East Policies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4bmA...x=0&playnext=1

Here is a tiny URL for the above one:

http://tinyurl.com/6yu8zc


David Pollock and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

www.Tinyurl.com/PollackWINEP

Additional at following URL:

http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot....itute-for.html

Here is a tiny URL for the above one: http://tinyurl.com/6dp7hj


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A Perfect Storm? Obama and the Zionist Power Configuration

Edmund Connelly

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.com...lly-Obama.html


November 16, 2008

Understandably, many Americans had hoped that the incoming Obama
administration would institute the promised changes away from the Bush
policies of war and economic turmoil that have become so wearily
familiar. That such hopes were misplace