You mean Chief of Staff. Isn't he really effective in Congress though? Can't we just split him down the middle? I like Daschle for Chief of Staff, Obama would need Rahm in the House.

You mean Chief of Staff. Isn't he really effective in Congress though? Can't we just split him down the middle? I like Daschle for Chief of Staff, Obama would need Rahm in the House.

And Marty, you must love his Israeli roots. Rashid Khalidi will not be Obama's Chief of Staff, needless to say.

I'm frankly puzzled by this. The White House CoS usually comes from the group of top campaign advisors, and Obama's campaign has a number of very good ones. Blackton is right that we need Emmanuel in Congress--he's my pick to replace the appalling Nancy Pelosi as Speaker.

Then, if we can get Hillary to replace the equally appalling Harry Reid, single-party rule may not be as bad this time as it has usually been.

Here in Chicago this is a strange story to hear. Last I read, Emmanuel was a top choice (perhaps the top choice) to succeed Obama in the US Senate should Obama win Tuesday. The seat is up for re-election in 2010 and Emmanuel would be a great candidate (plus the state GOP is in a bit of disarray). Also, Rahm's in the 5th district which is pretty solidly Dem (Rostenkowski and Blagojevich's old seat). Rahm's successor would most likely be able to hold on to the seat. But Emmanuel does know the White House from his Clinton days. Should be interesting...

...the appalling  Nancy Pelosi and the appalling Harry Reid...

Music to my ears: here's smoking gun evidence that at least two people on this planet think so.

Digresssion:

Speaking of things Chicagoan: a word from somebdy in these precincts on the passing of the great Studs Terkel, an all around hell of a guy.

It's because Democrats will have the Presidency and both houses of Congress that Rahm could be spared.

Those who have read my postings will know that I look forward to an Obama administration like a root canal.  But even a root canal can be relatively painless.  The Obama campaign has displayed from the outset a most impressive organization and discipline.  History shows that skilled management of a campaign often carries over to skilled management of the White House.

I have a lot of respect for Emmanuel's political skills.  I believe he is needed most where he is.  Pelosi is more than appalling.  She is dangerous.  Her conduct in advance of the first vote on TARP was unforgiveable for a Speaker in a time of crisis; akin to the most pedestrian of backbenchers from both parties.  One can only hope that her inevitable demise comes quicker than Gingrich's.  Emmanuel would be a great Democratic Speaker in the tradition of Rayburn and O'Neill.

Bob Powell: did I not read you to say that unless Obama evinced the understanding that Iraq is strategically superior for American interests than rooting than Afghanistan, you'd vote for McCain?

How's that coming?

...Pelosi is more than appalling.  She is dangerous.  Her conduct in advance of the first vote on TARP was unforgiveable for a Speaker in a time of crisis; akin to the most pedestrian of backbenchers from both parties.  One can only hope that her inevitable demise comes quicker than Gingrich's...

True that!

Look, we have to work with what we've got. Isernoff basically nails it--an administration that performs as McCain's campaign has done would be a catastrophe under just about any circumstances, while Obama's organization gives substantial reason to hope it will be able to think its way out of the box political expediency has gotten it into vis a vis Afghanistan vs Iraq.

In its final days the Bush Administration will probably continue to be active in striking targets of opportunity in Pakistan and Syria, more or less letting Obama off the hook in the short term. In terms of substantive proposals, Obama has consistently advocated for a robust interpretation of protecting our interests and allies in Iraq, and one can only hope he's sufficiently realistic to avoid getting us in over our head in Pakistan. I'm prepared to roll the dice here and hope for the best.

Was George Washington the lesser of two evils?

...Obama has consistently advocated for a robust interpretation of protecting our interests and allies in Iraq,..

What is this: sly parody?

The argument that running a campaign is an indicator of governing is self evidently ridicuous.

And how do you get to George Washington in thinking about these 2 guys?

p.s. that should have before been: "..than rooting the Taliban out of Afghanistan..."

While telling dogmatic anti-Iraq Democrats what they want to hear about pulling out, Obama has consistently from Day One made it clear that he intends to leave sufficient troops there to protect our interests in a stable allied government with secure borders (which means among other things playing the role of the de facto Iraqi airforce for some time); provide security for our people doing training and reconstruction; and to strike quickly against terrorist targets where they appear. A former Pentagon auditor estimated the number of soldiers required for this would be 40-60,000 over the next decade, which is probably about the maximum the Iraqi government would allow. Obama has also called for increasing our infantry forces, Army and Marines, by about 90,000, and it's unlikely that he intends to deploy them to Germany.

Although I remain concerned by Obama's over-emphasis on the importance of Afghanistan, I've seen no indication that he would risk becoming a neo-Jimmy Carter one-term disaster, which he certainly would if he is seen as having "lost" Iraq after things finally seem to be heading in the right direction there.

I guess the point about GW is that we don't have guys like that on offer any more.

Bob: Obama has said on Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia/Georgia, and NAFTA and China and other things whatever has suited him politically. On  Iraq in particular he has played politics in a big way as a Senator iand then as a presidential contender including  of course opposing the surge and then denying its efficacy.

Obama has been disgracefully opportunistic and unprinciipled on Iraq, He has admittedly been more adroit than Reid and Pelosi, but that was the constraints of political reaility on him, considering his aspirations. What a contrast with McCain on Iraq, who, in contrast, has been principled and  rather stellar from the get go, any erraticness of his campaigning to the contrary notwithstanding. I don't care who you vote for and I don't generally have a big brief for McCain. But on Iraq, I am sorry to say, you have allowed yourself to have been hustled by Obama's jive.

Good God, looking at his recent positions on Afghanistan/Pakistan taken just so he can sustain a critique on Iraq that serves him politically by appearing cogent while really being distorted, dangerously wrong and feckless.

In fact you can have no confidence on what position Obama will take on Iraq once President, which he assuredly wil be. With McCain you woould have had no such problem. So big deal, on another point, that the former is a smooth campaigner and McCain is not.

I am surprised at you.

I have always been of the conviction that Obama (Dems) will take credit for a foregone eventuality with the proviso that said draw down was effected with more care and political sensitivity than the nasty Pubs who started it all. Ostensibly under such friendly environs ( according Dem history) will a mutually beneficial and cooperative status be acquired thus approximating what Robert Powell suggests.

Dishonest? Hell yes! Effective? Time will tell. Face saving all around except for that nasty lying Bush and his enabling supporters. What are the consequences of this subterfuge? Time will tell. It's collective manifestation expressed in ratification of the relative? Probably. But time usually forces a more distinct ownership of choice.

My cynical and, I think, accurate appraisal of this doesn't prevent me from hoping for a successful Obama administration. Bartering pragmatic compromise on the myriad of forward looking propositions seems to be the order of the day. If the ME and specifically Iran remain unmoved I will regard this as a failed but useful and perhaps necessary gambit.

I hold no quarter with the left on this issue. Thing were what they were. Now things are what they are.

Oh yeah. Itzik, I think it is within bounds to criticize McCain for his woeful campaign and perhaps casts a shadow of doubt on likely future administrative credibility.

I don't know what you're surprised about Itzik. I think I know you well enough by now to expect that you know the difference between talk and action. In terms of the former, whatever works seems to be kosher in anyone's campaign, including McCain's. In terms of the latter, there's not a dime's worth of difference between McCain, Obama, or for that matter Bush, Clinton, or anyone else who's had even a remote chance of getting to make decisions in Iraq, Georgia, etc. Everyone says they want to "end the war", presumably with "honor", "victory", etc., which war actually ended about five years ago. Everyone also says Putin was a baad boy in Georgia, but McCain's strident rhetoric was actually better for the Russians because it made a more stark contrast with our inability to actually do anything about the situation.

At this point I think Obama will probably have a better chance to act deliberately in Iraq than McCain. Obama will have a Democrat-controlled Congress that won't want to undermine him, while McCain would be under continuous attack for doing about the same things Obama's likely to do. Plus, Obama has a much better position from which to use leverage on the Iraqi government, Iran, and others.

lsernoff  said,

"...But even a root canal can be relatively painless."

Under general anesthesia...

I guess that is what Obama has in store for us.

Hershel Ginsburg

Jerusalem / Efrata

Well Bob, all we can do is judge by and decide by such talk and action that exist.

And in that regard:

...In terms of the latter, there's not a dime's worth of difference between McCain, Obama, or for that matter Bush, Clinton, or anyone else...

Well, take the surge for example.

What you are saying here is way too broad (and more cynical than need be), if I underdstand you correctly.

I had wanted to add, and forgot to, from my narrow vantage point, that I am very concerned, and do not know, also, about how Obama will turn out on Israel. With McCain I do not have that concern..

You all are  gonna' get the trio of Obama, Reid and Pelosi, and we shall see what we shall see. I hope for the best but I am not sanguine about it. I hope Obama far, far exceeds my expectations for him.

Box,  I am having a little trouble understanding some of your last post.

But it's always nice talking to you,  and to Robert Powell  too,  in any event. It's been a while.

I know nothing and pretend otherwise: that's my position and I'm sticking with it!

p.s.

...but McCain's strident rhetoric was actually better for the Russians because it made a more stark contrast with our inability to actually do anything about the situation...

As I recall, after about 3 or 4 shots at it, here Obama eventually wound up where McCain started.

Okay, let's take "the surge". I was as skeptical as Obama, and for the same reason. The Republican campaign has tried to portray this as a simple function of more troops. We had a hell of a lot more boots on the ground in '03 and '04 when the stage was set for everything in Iraq going to Hell. What worked was firing Rumsfeld and going to the strategy we should have been working from before the fall of Baghdad. I'm confident that like me and many others, Obama supported that.

In terms of "more cynical than need be", I'm not sure it's possible to be too cynical when it comes to Presidential politics. Your concern about US policy towards Israel should be run through the filter of knowing that McCain represents the party of Pat Buchanan, while this post originated on the entirely credible speculation that Obama supporter Rahm Emmanuel may be the next White House CoS. If Obama's good enough on Israel for Rahm and our host, he's good enough for me.

On "Obama, Reid, and Pelosi", please see the recent comments of ex-Nebraska Senator and current college president Bob Kerry ("the good Kerry").  My guess is that we get new Congressional leadership soon, and an intelligently pragmatic government.

Oh yeah, Georgia. Obama denounced the Russian action in his very first statement, and called for "restraint on both sides" for which he was roundly, and absurdly, denounced. When the first priority is to get a ceasefire, as it most certainly was then, restraint on both sides is the only possible way to do it. And of course shortly after Biden traveled to Tiblisi at the specific request of the Georgian government, Obama named him for VP.

McCain, on the other hand, spouted off a lot of pointless rhetoric that merely played into Putin's hands by underlining our impotence. If he'd had his way Russian would already be out of the G8, giving us even less leverage than we have now. And then he named Sarah Palin for VP because she can see Russia from her living room window.

robertpowell

I have two words for  you: "Jimmy Carter".

I'm  not saying Obama will be  like him and I'm not saying he won't. I'm saying we don't know.

With McCain we know--he would not have been. In this world that is something.

Read the chapter on Carter in Dershowitz's  new The Case Against The Enemies Of Israel.

btw...McCain, on the other hand, spouted off a lot of pointless rhetoric that merely played into Putin's hands by underlining our impotence. If he'd had his way Russian would already be out of the G8, giving us even less leverage than we have now. And then he named Sarah Palin for VP because she can see Russia from her living room window....

1. This is an argument against Obama who wound *spouting the same rhetoric*, calibrating his every transforming responding syllable by how the domestic political winds were blowing.

2. Palin is a complicated issue that puts strategy and tactics against principle in a difficult way to think through. His campaign needed her like a junkie needs heroin. She has been a net plus to him I'd argue, but in principle she probably should not have been chosen. I'd rationalize his choice on the difference between political morality and academic morality argued for by Machiavelli against Plato and is purist progeny.

Anyway I wish your next president Obama well.

Oh Bob:

p.s.

can't resist and you persist in surprising me by reducing yourself to talking points.

...Okay, let's take "the surge". I was as skeptical as Obama, and for the same reason. The Republican campaign has tried to portray this as a simple function of more troops. We had a hell of a lot more boots on the ground in '03 and '04 when the stage was set for everything in Iraq going to Hell. What worked was firing Rumsfeld and going to the strategy we should have been working from before the fall of Baghdad. I'm confident that like me and many others, Obama supported that...

This is gobbledey gook. "The Republican campaign" never portrayed the surge as more boots on the ground. Anyone who knew/knows anything knew/knows that the surge in troops was a necessary complement to a bottom up counter insurgency strategy that combined soft and hard power, which fortuitously melded with the various tribal and local awakenings in Iraq. Obama being a political nay sayer for domestic political consumption originally totally discounted the surge and attributed all success to the awakenings only. He then said now that withdrawal is being contemplated that Bush et al finally had seen his wisdom and were coming to his position--the audacity of bullshit, I suppose.  

McCain called for and stuck with the surge as a strategy and called for Rumsfeld's firing when his campaign was in the terlet and the ISG's recommendations gave political cover for a withdrawal. Who stood up against  and rejected that lipstick on a pig defeatism: George Bush for one to his credit; Dick Cheney for two to his credit; and McCain for three to his.  Against these principled positions where was Obama? I'll tell you where: he was twisting in the American political winds, spineless and craven--like most of them--and catering to what was good for him politically.

Oh but he's a smooth campaigner and McCain is erratic.

Sort of like:  "For Brutus is an honorable man" smooth.

Give me a break.

McCain deserves all the credit you give him here. But at the end of the day, calling for Rumsfeld's firing didn't get it done when it would have helped, changing the strategy was something that wouldn't have been needed if they'd listened to Colin Powell, Tony Zinni and others who had the appropriate strategy already in the can and ready to go from Day One ("...ten years of work discarded" according to Zinni, the job of stabilizing Iraq turned over to a bunch of FEMA-like hacks), and Obama never advocated anything other than a deliberate and responsible redeployment, with details about what we needed to get done in the process. Obama is no Jimmy Carter.

And, as you know, McCain's not going to get elected. See post above on Wednesday Morning.

... Obama never advocated anything other than a deliberate and responsible redeployment, with details about what we needed to get done in the process. Obama is no Jimmy Carter....

How do you write these things?

McCain never just called for Rumsfeld's firing; he at great political risk to him simulatneously called for the surge.

Powell never called for the surge, ever. His and Zinni's calls for more troops were not married to a counter insurgency strategy. The Powell Doctrine is essentially overwhelmingly massive troop presence. It's in the tradition of classic war strategy; it's not a counter insurgency strategy and never pretended to be. The model for the Petraeus's counter insurgency strategy for which the troop surge is a necessary but not suffcient element is Algeria, where, instructively, the French began, just began mind you, to turn things around based on it , before public demand forced the political choice to end that war. It of course was a rump colonialist  conflict, entirely different from the U.S. in Iraq. Interestingly, Ariel Sharon, who counseled Bush agaiinst the war, argued for a counter insurgency strategy from the outset. He was a very clear thinker on these issues.

Obama argued about a year ago (and I heard him say so)--because it suited him electorally--that he would lock step the troops out of Iraq regardless of what the commanders said, because he was the mission decider not the military. Hillary was making the same argument at the time. At one point Obama siad in the course of his  general twisting and turning that not much distinguished his Iraq position form Bush's, and at one time he said that he did not know how he would have voted on the war originally had he been in the Senate. The man pivots better than Allan Iverson on a good day.

He also argued, "Words matter"!

Whether Obama is a Jimmy Carter remains to be seen. You seem to feel the need to assert things you can't possibly know.You may be right. But Carter had a lot of people fooled including the estimable Allan D.  and Stuart Eisenstadt and lots of other very smart liberals like them, who now loudly and volubly recant, even though Carter out of the starting gate appointed the far left whack job Andrew Young--who championed Fanon and others--to the U.N. . At the time, the overreaction to Nixon was palpable just as now the reaction against Bush is.

Keep it up; I'll have you voting for McCain.

On whom your next president will be, we agree.

I'm afraid it's too late to change my vote--my absentee ballot went in some time ago. Besides, I came out for Obama early and often. A few modest points:

--Powell and Zinni didn't just "call for more troops". They, in their capacities at State and Centcom, presided over an exhaustive plan for Iraq after Saddam that included most if not all of the successful elements of "the surge". Bush decided to go with Rumsfeld and the CPA. Sharon, as he often was, was correct, but hardly alone. See Bacevitch's excellent advocacy of the "oil-spot" approach published in Foreign Affairs early in the occupation, or, if I may, some of my comments on the subject at this site.

--I can't imagine how you could have heard Obama say something that contradicted his constant public refrain about "getting out as carefully as we were reckless getting in"; his detailed written list of priorities to be attended to in the process of re-deployment which requires tens of thousands of troops; and his consistent caveat about consulting the commanders on the ground and taking consideration of specific conditions as we went along. I was impressed by his candidness in noting the obvious fact that his policy was essentially the same as that of Bush and Clinton, and that he might well have voted for the invasion if he'd been in the Senate in 2002.

There's an excellent link in the post above titled "The Morning After" on which I've made a comment. If you want to carry on, I suggest moving there.

Regards,        Bob

test

Bob, where can I find an *authoritative* account of State's plans or Zinni's recommendations or Powell's for that matter including the elements of the surge--the whole surge counterinsurgency strategy that is, and not just more troops? Your proposition defies my understanding of Powell's and Zinni's recommendations as classic Powell Doctrine and State's plans as going to post war civil governance--including of course peace keeping-- but not to counterinsurgency miliitary strategy. I am always happy to be be disabused of my misconceptions, if such they be.

Can you give me a link or a reference at least?

The title of the project was "The Future of Iraq" in the State Department. I heard Zinni reference it and in particular CentCom's input several times in the last few years. Sorry I don't have a handy link, but this document exists and I'm sure I can locate the appropriate link, just don't have the time today in the post-election rush.

B

o.k. I look forward to the link when you can find a minute, and I appreciate it!

Itzik--

For some reason I can't "Cut" the links to paste here, but if you Google "Future of Iraq State Dept" you'll get a whole bunch to choose from.

I'll give it a shot.

Thanks for trying anyway.

I deeply approve of Barack Obama's appointments thus far. You already know what I think of Rahm Emanuel