Kissinger Hails Obama's "Courage" For Picking "Extraordinary" National Security Team

President-elect Barack Obama has appointed an extraordinary team for national security policy. On its face, it violates certain maxims of conventional wisdom: that appointing to the Cabinet individuals with an autonomous constituency, and who therefore are difficult to fire, circumscribes presidential control; that appointing as national security adviser, secretary of state and secretary of defense individuals with established policy views may absorb the president's energies in settling disputes among strong-willed advisers.

It took courage for the president-elect to choose this constellation and no little inner assurance -- both qualities essential for dealing with the challenge of distilling order out of a fragmenting international system. In these circumstances, ignoring conventional wisdom may prove to have been the precondition for creativity. Both Obama and the secretary of state-designate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, must have concluded that the country and their commitment to public service require their cooperation.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[dwillisno1]

The Right is still trying to spin their interpretation on the election. They need to try to get the people to believe this election was not about a shift in power to the left, so they keep acting like Obama actually agrees with them! Center Right Center Right is their mantra, until its time to declare Obama and all Democrats as radical leftists again. They really can't admit they lost, and that the people rejected them.

[eahce]

Of course Kissinger hails Obama's security team It is a CFR wet dream come true.

[windypaperboy]

Is this change we can believe in?

[windypaperboy]

Not a single one opposed the lraq vvar.

[windypaperboy]

Rahm, Hillary, Dennis Ross, everyone are AlPAC people running the show of foreign policy.

[windypaperboy]

Republicans and democrats a both dominated by AlPAC.

[windypaperboy]

The only chance for peace is to ruin the US and lsraeI.

[windypaperboy]

VVar is the only option.

[windypaperboy]

No peace in PaIestine!

[windypaperboy]

It's a right vving government on foreign poIicy.

[windypaperboy]

Bye bye M.E. peace process.

[elpollo]

Just what our president-elect needs - the praise and approval of our leading war criminal. Warms my heart.

[UltraClassic]

Obama has had his first briefs on what is going on the world. I predict that he stays the course. He is not a stupid man and I doubt he will let far left politics sway him from the cold, harsh reality of national security.

[AnnArky]

Until men like Kissinger have breathed their last this planet will remain as it is today.

[instagladiator]

I Agree.

[cliffhammond]

That editorial was not at all what I was expecting from Kissinger. I'm not a fan of his but I enjoyed his comments because they informed regarding the process of interoffice politics rather than the substance of foreign policy -- something that would have made Kissinger's editorial much more controversial. I suspect he is not done writing editorials.

I'm already concerned about Obama because we keeping hearing the word "pragmatic" coming out of Obama's transition team. That word represents to me a red flag in terms of its mememic potential to actually translate into Kissingerian "Realpolitik." So when I see Kissinger in the news lauding the right-of-center Obama government it creates concern.

Still, I suspect that our grandfatherly Machiavellian -- the proponent of "Realpolitik" in the Nixon years -- was planting seeds. Gates, Jones and Clinton all represent the status quo. If Obama is trying to placate the oligarchs who controlled the neoconservative White House under Bush, he is doing an effective job. But the neoliberals on the other side of the same coin are being patient, knowing their time is in its incipiency. Kissinger may think this is a honeymoon but the betrayal is coming and I really don't think that Obama even has a clue.