A Hawkish Cabinet?

I don't think any of these people are as hawkish as the rabid Neoconservatives Bush started out with.
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Dingdingding...
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Oops, false alarm!

If you are surprised by this you were not paying attention. Both Obama and Clinton (and Biden) made it very clear that they were proponents of the use of force. Clinton had to be dragged into stating opposition to the Iraq occupation, and Obama was also very slow to accept that he could not get the nomination and support the occupation.

And they were the two top vote-getters. Those with stronger opposition to the occupation lost, badly.

This development will sharpen the beaks of Washington hawks. It's scary, and fear shakes the electorate and empowers its representatives. I was wondering what impact this news would have had if it hit during the campaign. On the one hand, it would have played into McCain's strengths and Obama's weaknesses. On the other hand ... Palin.

Otoh.
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America's adventures are unsustainable in the current curropt, incompetent environment that is the MIC.
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A link. Always an adventure without my friend and guiding light, preview.

Sorry, link:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/20/africa/20nuke.php

pourme--
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That's nothing new. there's nothing close to a weapon there.

The problem, and the real story here, is that all of establishment Washington got on board with the invasion. That is why so many of these picks supported the invasion. Given that something like 70 percent of the country thinks the war was a mistake, this isn't just a concern of the antiwar left.
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Obama has eased the rigid timetable
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This is not completely true, I don't think. There was never a "rigid timeline," save in media narratives and GOP talking points.

This is starting to drive me crazy.
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1) Obama doesn't have a lot of company among those he might summon to office; practically no one else in positions of power (which he really was not, at the time) spoke out against the war.
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2) Why are we suddenly thinking that his cabinet officers are going to follow their own way instead of implementing Obama's intent?
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3) Obama argued with Petraeus while he was still a candidate, making clear that as President he would be balancing other priorities as well as Iraq, and that he therefore had a different point of view.
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4) We spent the whole campaign sure that he was emphasizing something too much or too little. He did alright by himself, and by us.
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5) He made clear in the campaign that he would surround himself and include in his cabinet people who disagreed with him so that he had the full spectrum of ideas and opinions. We seem to be astonished and disappointed that he's doing what he said he would.

I don't think that this is nearly as significant a "shift" as it seems. Obama is not a hawk, and if he was, he would have allowed Liebermann more access to foreign policy.
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Everyone remembers when Hillary was exonerated by us during the primary over her vote for the Iraq war. It was clearly a situation where she put trust in Bush, and that trust was violated.
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We are not going to be gearing up for any wars, but I do think we are going to be hard nosed when it comes to real threats instead of imagined or manufactured threats.

@jay - I disagree. It's really irrelevant that the automaker CEOs flew private jets to Capitol Hill, but it may have torpedoed their chances. Bush, Cheney and Powell's wording sleight of hand ought to have been irrelevant in the runup to war, but they were key. You may be technically correct, but once the public gets the feeling that Iran is on a tractor beam to nuclear weaponry, we have opened the door into a whole new world of public opinion.

Elvis - agreed. The Republicans kept saying that Obama wanted to withdraw troops "immediately," and that was not his position.

Karen - surely Mr. Swamp understands that Obama would "appear to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts."? When did Obama ever suggest otherwise?

I remember my reaction the first time I encountered Obama stickers featuring a peace sign in the "O" I cringed to think that anyone beleived that Obama represented the "Peace Candidate". I always felt that reprenting the "Non-Insane" candidate would be sufficient improvment to make his candidacy worth supporting. I still feel that way.

Besides, if you want to confine your cabinet picks to those who were right on Iraq, you'll end up with me and Natalie Maines. Not exactly realistic.

That's handing way too much power to the IHT's headline writer.
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Have a lot of low level nuclear waste is not a bomb. It's not close to a bomb. It's fearmongering nonsense.

I do think that one of the results (and therefore probably one of the intents) of Obama encouraging a clean slate with Lieberman was that he signaled to foreign powers that he's ready to approach them with a clean slate, too. That is, if Obama was going to "punish" domestic "enemies," why would foreign enemies expect anything less? Obama's approach seems to be "Let's start over and see if we can do business."

Besides, if you want to confine your cabinet picks to those who were right on Iraq, you'll end up with me and Natalie Maine
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Me too!! And I know this guy in Lyon as well.

Hogwash. I realize every reporter (including Mr. Swamp) has a requirement to write SOMETHING about SOMEONE, but the continued reporting of clueless speculation by parties outside the Obama bubble about people he MAY have appointed and their supposed positions about the single issue that those uninformed somebodies possess is the ultimate in teh stoopid.

Of course, for anybody in the media to write what they actually know about these things wouldn't fill up the fish wrappers, so....

@jay - It's front page NYT material, and in hundreds of other outlets. You'd better let them all know it's not news.

I think that Iran is headed for nuclear capacity. However, we are not going to be fighting a war over it.
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Neither will Israel.
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The sabre ratttling that started gas prices in their upward spiral are a lesson in the econimic impact, and attacking a country with 68,000,000 people, a highly varied topography, and a good, if inferior armed forces, is not something one would engage in if one wants to right the problems this country faces.
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It would be a bit like invading Iraq to fight Al-Queda...

Obama's remark about being a mirror onto which others project themselves comes to mind here. A lot of people think he is something to the left of what he said he was. Very clearly.
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Huh.
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Maybe being a black urban community organizer was a dogwhistle to left. One that he didn't mean to be blowing, obviously.
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The Dirty Hippies in the blogosphere didn't hear it. That's for sure.

I agree with Elvis -- most of DC and the public -- was for the war at the time. Did anyone think Obama was going to appoint Kucinich as Sec of State?

I think Obama will lean hawkish on foriegn policy so he can run left on domestic policy.

Somehow I think this event should be part of the equation. Think Progress » Iraqi version of SOFA called a ‘withdrawal accord.' As is the fact that it was Obama's election that led to the SOFA agreement because the Iraqis felt the could be trusted to keep his word.

53_3 wins the thread: "It would be a bit like invading Iraq to fight Al-Queda..."

Pourme--
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It's not news. Sometimes paper write stuff that isn't news. It's stupid fearmongering.
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If, indeed, Obama does not shift the US from a primarily military approach to foreign policy, you may hear more of this. But it has absolutely no security impact and is no indication of whether Iran will build a bomb. Anymore than yellowcake supplies in wherever that bs came from indicates they're working on a bomb there.
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This is eminently solvable through diplomacy. The only value in having a nuke is to deter the US. If the US stops engaging in aggressive wars, then people will stop building one or two nukes.