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Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton’s network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be between Obama’s staff, but rather against those who actually want a change in US foreign policy, not just a staff change in the war room.

When announcing his foreign policy team on Monday, Obama said: “I didn’t go around checking their voter registration.” That is a bit hard to believe, given the 63-question application to work in his White House. But Obama clearly did check their credentials, and the disturbing truth is that he liked what he saw.

The assembly of Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, Susan Rice and Joe Biden is a kettle of hawks with a proven track record of support for the Iraq war, militaristic interventionism, neoliberal economic policies and a worldview consistent with the foreign policy arch that stretches from George HW Bush’s time in office to the present. (more…)

U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.

Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton’s White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama’s team.

"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. "This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."
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Like a Moslem undertaking the Hajj, the once in a lifetime trip to Mecca, or a Catholic chancing to see the Pope speak from his Vatican window, presidential candidates seemingly long to trudge to the annual AIPAC conference to pay fealty to Israel and its Lobby.

This year we were fortunate enough to witness John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton taking turns losing their dignity before the AIPAC crowd. At one point in his parody on The Daily Show , Jon Stewart spoke of John McCain taking with him Senator Joe Lieberman on a visit to Israel, advising McCain that when you visit Israel “you don’t need to bring your own Jew.”

Hillary’s declaration of support for Israel was merely icing on the cake that she earlier baked during the campaign by promising to “obliterate” Iran if it ever attacked Israel. That, without even a declaration of war called for by the U.S. Constitution should we attack another nation. (But see George W. Bush’s attack on Iraq without such a declaration as precedent). (more…)

Two evenings ago, speaking before the American-Israeli Pubic Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Barack Obama desperately attempted to win back his floundering support among the American Jewish community by demonstrating his hawkish, pro-Israel stance. This is neither unusual nor suspect—especially in the United States where the Jewish demographic tends to be more fundamentally Zionist than the Israelis themselves and aspiring candidates are almost required to recite Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat by heart.

Naturally, Obama made the typical platitudes: “Israel has the right to defend itself”, “I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend … Israel”, ad nauseam. But then he said something that could have caused Ariel Sharon to crack a smile through his coma:

“Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognised, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and must remain undivided,” he said to rapturous clapping and cheering.

What? East Jerusalem will remain part of Israel? Have U.S. politicians finally ceased pretending they support a negotiated settlement? (more…)