NYT editorial: Mr. Obama’s Team

[DeepModem Mom]

Mr. Obama’s Team
Published: December 1, 2008

After years of watching American leadership crumble under the weight of bad decisions made in a White House shuttered to all debate, President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team is a relief.

Starting with the selection of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his former rival, as secretary of state, the president-elect has displayed his usual self-confidence. Declaring that he prizes “strong personalities and strong opinions,” Mr. Obama, who has limited foreign-policy experience, showed that he wants advisers with real authority who will not be afraid to disagree with him — two traits disastrously lacking in President Bush’s team.

Mr. Obama reached deeper into the Washington establishment — but in a bipartisan way — and asked Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to stay on and appointed Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander who advised both Mr. Obama and Senator John McCain, as his national security adviser.

But Mr. Obama made it clear that his administration would follow a new course, reaffirming plans to remove American combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, committing to rebuild America’s tattered alliances and rejecting Mr. Bush’s over-reliance on military might and bullying. Mr. Obama declared his intention to use “all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy, our intelligence and law enforcement, our economy and the power of our moral example.”

We have long admired Mrs. Clinton for her determination and her judgment and believe she will bring both to her new office at a critical time. She already has international stature, knows world leaders and has served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. As Mr. Obama said, she is “tough and smart and disciplined.” Certainly, her selection indicates a radical break with the disastrous way that Vice President Dick Cheney ran so much of foreign and national security policy out of the vice president’s office....

Despite their debates in the presidential primaries, they share a broader vision, including a recognition that American troops must be extracted from Iraq so they can concentrate on Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are resurgent. Mr. Gates, never a member of the hawkish neo-conservatives that drove the United States into Iraq in the first place, shares that view....

Both the selection of Mr. Gates and the appointment of General Jones should ease Mr. Obama’s early relations with the Pentagon....

There is no underestimating the challenges facing Mr. Obama, and he will need a strong team to help him. The choices announced on Monday are a strong start.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/opinion/02tue1.html?hp