President-elect Barack Obama has Defense Secretary Robert Gates in mind to serve again in his post, at least for the first year of his presidency. According to Politico, the rest of the National Security roster is shaping up as well, with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Jim Steinberg as Department Secretary of State, General Jim Jones as National Security Advisor, and Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations. ...

Daoud Kuttab writes in the Huffington Post about how the Egyptian government sought to expunge a newspaper cartoon that hoped for change in Egypt much like the one seen in the U.S. election. "The weekly stated that 150,000 copies of the paper's first edition were quickly removed from the streets and destroyed and the 'troublesome' phrase disappeared from future prints that day." Moreover, "The Egyptian government's overreaction is a sign of ...

Shadi Hamid, POMED’s Director of Research, argues at Democracy Arsenal that Barack Obama has a window of opportunity to change the region by committing to “real support for democracy and democrats in the Middle East."  He notes that “for the first time in recent memory, Arabs and Muslims are cheering on an American president” in the hopes that the U.S. will clearly support human rights and political reform in the ...

It can't be avoided so let's make it quick. First, Scott MacLeod at Time Magazine's Middle East Blog writes on Rahm Emanuel and his potential influence on Obama's Middle East policy; Second, James Brazier at the Diplomatic Courier, offers his take on how the U.S. should play the "Saudi-Iranian Cold War" under an Obama administration, all-the-while hinting at Lawrence J. Korb having a position in the new administration; Third, Daoud ...

To dovetail with Jason's post below and mine just before it, the Wall Street Journal offers a piece today that states, "The election of Barack Obama will trigger a significant realignment ofU.S. national-security priorities, with Afghanistan and Pakistan gaining in prominence as resources are redirected from Iraq." Moreover, "Aides said Mr. Obama is likely to deploy tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, where security conditions have worsened ...

Before the financial crisis, much of our election hinged on Iraq. Time forcefully returns to the issue and asks the million dollar question: "Will Obama have to adjust his timetable on Iraq?" Pulling nearly all U.S. troops and equipment out of Iraq in 16 months is "physically impossible," says a top officer involved in briefing the President-elect on U.S. operations..." Juan Cole at Informed Comment has bundled this piece with ...

An editorial in the Financial Times made a bold suggestion today. If Obama remains serious about the "tough-minded diplomacy" he spoke of on the campaign trail, then "e should signal his intent by naming soon a special envoy for the Middle East with plenipotentiary powers to mediate and negotiate on behalf of his incoming administration. That would be change and it would quickly be perceived as such. Bill Clinton, the ...

To do my part to contribute to Obama-mania, Rebecca Frankel at Foreign Policy has an interesting piece up, noting, " Iran...is holding its own presidential election next June. With Obama -- an African-American bearing the middle name Hussein who has spoken openly of his intention to negotiate -- in the White House, it will be far more difficult for extremists to demonize the United States, at least at first. This ...

For those of you who aren't glued to TV/internet/radio/civilization, last night Barack Obama was elected President. Check out the latest polls, counts, and punditry. Of course, bloggers didn’t wait long to remind readers that there is a lot of work ahead. Rob at Arabic Media Shack starts by examining potential National Security Advisors, and suggests Bruce Reidel for the position. Check out ForeignPolicy.com’s picks for “The Dream Team,” with choices all over the ...

It's important to note, as we Americans go to the polls tomorrow, that there are many, many people in the Middle East whose lives will be dramatically affected by the outcome of this election.  Even though they lack the voice in this election that we enjoy through our vote, America's involvement in the Middle East means they often have just as many hopes and concerns for the outcome of this ...

Writing for RealClearPolitics, Gregory Scoblete laments Barack Obama's inability and apparent unwillingness to bring a new perspective to national security politics that could have helped his party shed the "weak on security" stigma that has stuck in the consciousness of voters for several presidential election cycles. One of Scoblete's explanations for Obama's failure on this subject is that U.S. public opinion is declining for many of the soft power initiatives that ...

Some interesting speculation two days before the U.S. election: In the latest "Doha Debates" episode, a monthly forum in Qatar broadcast by BBC World, 87 percent of the audience voted against the closing motion, "This House believes the Middle East would be better off with John McCain in the White House." While that sounds like a resounding endorsement of Barack Obama, Mona Eltahawy reports that many members of the audience "expressed ...

Sarah Palin delivered an energy policy speech today, hitting on one of POMED's prime equities in moving toward diminishing our dependence on Middle Eastern oil: "In the worst cases, some of the world's most oil-rich nations are also the most oppressive societies. And whether we like it or not, the money we pay for their oil only makes them more powerful and more oppressive. Oil wealth allows undemocratic governments to crush ...

In a column for Newsweek, recently-retired no. 3 official in the State Department Nicholas Burns makes the case for talking to our enemies, specifically recommending this strategy vis-a-vis Iran.  Anne Bayefsky of the National Review makes the exact opposite argument.  Reihan Salam, writing in Forbes, sees an Iran "in a state of slow-motion collapse" reminiscent of the Soviet Union just before perestroika. He moves the focus away from the debate ...

Richard Haass, in a memo to the next president about the world that awaits him and what he should do about it, offers the following advice on democracy promotion to John McCain and Barack Obama: "One area, however, where you would be wise to put some distance between yourself and "43" involves democracy. America does not have the ability to transform the world. Nor do we have the luxury. We need ...

In the new issue of Washington Monthly, Gen. Wesley Clark writes about how we should advance democracy in the post-Bush era during a review of James Traub's new book tackling the same subject.  Here's Clark's main formulation of how Barack Obama and John McCain's approaches to democratization might differ: "Regardless of who takes office in January, American foreign policy will continue to seek a higher, more legitimate purpose than the simple ...

David Sanger had a good piece in today's New York Times taking a macro-level view of the candidates' foreign policies and how they might be carried out once in office.  Sanger focuses on broad issues such as each candidate's view of humanitarian aid, their willingness to consider military intervention in conflict zones, and the prism through which they each view great power relations. Al-Jazeera has a piece arguing that much of ...

The fall 2008 issue of Arab Insight from the World Security Institute has been released, and at over 130 pages, there is much to cover. The "latest edition investigates the political transformation from the George W. Bush administration's war on terror and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, controversial in the United States and the Arab world alike, to a new presidency, asking what actions from the next American administration would ...

Yesterday the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars hosted a panel discussion entitled, "McCain, Obama, ahd the Middle East: The Influence of Domestic Politics on U.S. Policy." Participants included Graeme Bannerman, Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute; Hussein Ibish, Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership and Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine; Richard Strauss, editor of the Middle East Policy Survey; ...

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) gave an insightful speech at National Defense University yesterday intended to lay out the foreign policy agenda for the next president. Of course, at this stage of the campaign we should expect something this interesting to go largely ignored—and the coverage it has garnered has mainly sought to extrapolate an endorsement, which Lugar studiously avoided. The remarks focus on how ...