There has been a lot of talk about Obama’s instincts in foreign affairs. He has surrounded himself with apologists for the Palestinians, for example. Plus of course his previous statements in debates. What counts is who he appoints in his administration. There are signs already of where he is going.
We have some appointments as indicators.
First, his National Security Advisor, General Jones, whose views on Israel are in the public record.
According to both Israeli and American sources, the envoy’s conclusions about Israel are scathing. Israelis who met with Jones on his most recent visit here a few weeks ago, including Israel Defense Forces officers, said their impression was that the report would be “very harsh, and make Israel look very bad.”
Jones is apparently critical of Israel on two key issues. One is its fairly broad definition of its security interests in the West Bank under any final-status agreement. The other is its attitude toward the PA security services.
However, the sources said, Jones also had some criticism for Washington: He said its efforts to reform the PA security services fell short and complained that U.S. government agencies are not coordinating their assistance for these forces. In addition, he reportedly concluded that the PA forces are not yet capable of effectively enforcing the law in the West Bank.
Well, that was not much of a surprise. There’s always the new CIA chief.
John Brennan, who heads the Obama team managing the transition process for the intelligence community, is rumored to be Obama’s pick to head the CIA. Brennan published a long article on Iran in July 2008, expressing a benign view of the Islamic Republic and harsh criticism of U.S. policies that he believes have driven Iran in the wrong direction. Excerpts follow:
“Notwithstanding the fiery rhetoric coming from Iranian officials such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian theocracy has made much more limited use of terrorism over the past decade than it did in the first twenty years of its reign….Although it would represent a significant act of domestic political courage, U.S. national security would be best served if Washington publicly acknowledged and explored the roots of this shift in Iranian state support for terrorist activities….While it may serve some narrow political agendas to lump together a wide variety of Iranian policies and actions that are antithetical to U.S. policy aims under the rubric of state-sponsored terrorism, U.S. strategic interests require a more nuanced analysis of and less absolutist approach to this problem….Instead of pursuing a nuanced strategy that could have allowed flexibility in U.S. policy, the Bush administration regrettably opted to conduct its activities under the overarching banner of “The Global War on Terrorism” and declared it would make no distinction between terrorist operatives and their state sponsors.
Sounds like a devoted “root causes” guy, doesn’t he. Well, I guess the Jews knew who they were voting 77% for, didn’t they ?