Obama's Brain Trust Taking Shape Foreign Policy Aides in Democratic Mainstream By ELI LAKE Staff Reporter of the Sun
WASHINGTON — When it comes to foreign affairs, Senator Obama's inner circle of advisers includes a Swahili-speaking Air Force general he met on a trip to Africa; a 30-year-old speechwriter who helped draft the final report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, and President Clinton's first national security adviser, who in 2005 converted to Judaism under the tutelage of the Navy's chief Jewish chaplain.
Those advisers in order are Scott Gration, Ben Rhodes, and Anthony Lake. They are part of a nine-person team, in contact every day, often by e-mail. The team develops policy positions, clears language for use in comments to the press, and prepares the Democratic candidate who has won all the primaries since Super Tuesday for a dangerous world and a global war.
Who advises Mr. Obama and whom the candidate would appoint to key foreign policy posts if elected president has raged as the topic of intense speculation on the Internet and through often anonymous e- mails warning Jewish voters that Mr. Obama's team may be neutral or indeed hostile to Israel.
In a series of interviews with the campaign's foreign policy advisers and supporters, as well as critics, the national security team that emerges around Mr. Obama is one that is in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. The senator's advisers favor a withdrawal from Iraq and see it as a distraction from the wider war on Al Qaeda; they have developed a detailed policy on how to exit the country. The campaign favors high-level diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran, but in the context of changing the behavior of these regimes. And the foreign policy team, like the candidate, does not support pressuring Israel into negotiations with Hamas.
The nine-member team funnels input to Denis McDonough, an Obama campaign staff member who briefs the candidate. A broader group of 250 advisers are divided into groups dealing with the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Russia-Europe, defense, veterans, counterterrorism, democracy and development, and multilateral institutions. On average each of these groups has 20 people. The Obama campaign has declined to release the names of all the participants, saying that some of them are volunteering their time while serving in jobs at government agencies and nonprofits that don't want to be publicly associated with a partisan political campaign.
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Obama's Inner Circle By Staff Reporter of the Sun February 21, 2008 updated 8:26 am EST
Gregory Craig: The lawyer who played a leading role in the defense team for President Clinton's impeachment is a newcomer to foreign policy. At the end of the Clinton administration, he served as the director of policy planning at the State Department.
Richard Danzig: A Yale-trained lawyer, Rhodes scholar, and secretary of the Navy for President Clinton, Mr. Danzig serves as one of Senator Obama's chief advisers on military affairs.
Scott Gration: A retired Air Force major general and fluent Swahili speaker, General Gration met Senator Obama on a trip to Africa and the two have been in close touch ever since. General Gration flew missions as a command pilot in Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he served as commander of Task Force West.
Anthony Lake: President Clinton's first national security adviser is the most senior man on the Obama campaign's foreign policy team. Mr. Lake has been criticized by Samantha Power for his inaction on preventing genocide in Rwanda and slow reaction to the Serb-led massacres in Bosnia during his first term. Mr. Lake is the highest ranking Clinton administration official working for Senator Obama.
Denis McDonough: A former legislative aide to Senator Daschle, Mr. McDonough is the Obama campaign's "point guard" on foreign policy, as some campaign staffers call him.
Samantha Power: A journalist and a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, Ms. Power is the author of "A Problem From Hell," a book that examines the problem of genocide from the perspective of international law. She became Senator Obama's first foreign affairs tutor and worked on his staff in 2005.
Ben Rhodes: A 30-year-old wunderkind, Mr. Rhodes was one of the lead staff writers for the Iraq Study Group recommendations issued at the end of 2006 that encouraged engagement with Syria and Iran to end the war in Iraq. He is also a coauthor of Lee Hamilton's and Thomas Kean's memoir of the commission to investigate September 11. Mr. Rhodes serves as the chief speechwriter on foreign policy.
Susan Rice: A senior staffer on President Clinton's national security council who served as assistant secretary of State for African affairs, Ms. Rice has been an outspoken foe of the Sudanese regime for the last ten years. At the end of the Clinton administration she gave a press conference in southern Sudan and accused the Sudanese regime of allowing a new slave trade. In 2004, she first endorsed Howard Dean, but ended up as a senior adviser for Senator Kerry's campaign.
Daniel Shapiro: A senior adviser on Middle East affairs, Mr. Shapiro is a long time Democratic operative who worked for four years for Senator Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Florida. In that capacity, he played a role in sponsoring some hawkish legislation such as the Syria Accountability Act and working to list Hezbollah's satellite television station, al-Manar, as a foreign terrorist organization. Also, Mr. Shapiro also worked briefly for President Clinton's national security council.