Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top adviser on counterterrorism

[Are_grits_groceries]

Barack Obama has picked John O. Brennan as his top adviser on counterterrorism, a role that will give the CIA veteran a powerful voice on the government's use of security contractors and on other sensitive issues in which he recently has played a private-sector role.

By appointing Brennan to a senior White House position not subject to Senate approval, Obama is also making him an influential adviser on the Middle East and on Iran, a topic on which Brennan has called for a sharp break with past U.S. policy.

The president-elect's decision comes only six weeks after Brennan was forced to pull out of contention for the directorship of the CIA because of fears that his statements supporting some controversial interrogation techniques would have complicated his confirmation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/08/AR2009010804108.html?hpid=topnews

Brennan is in by hook or crook.

[Kdillard]

1. Bad move imo but I hope I turn out to be wrong.

[Thrill]

2. He's obviously earned Obama's trust

Obama clearly likes this guy. He heads one of the transition departments. And Obama has found a place to use his talents. In positions like this, you had better have people you trust.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. And your turst better be

correctly placed. And constantly inspected for flaws.

[rosesaylavee]

4. I like this from the article...

"Following his long experience with the Middle East, including a stint as the CIA's station chief in Saudi Arabia, Brennan has expressed some potentially controversial opinions about how U.S. policy there must shift, particularly toward Iran. In an academic article published six months ago, for example, Brennan said President Bush and his aides had inappropriately publicly bashed Iran, and he urged that U.S. rhetoric toward the country be sharply toned down.

He also called for an increased role for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanese politics, an idea he acknowledged would be anathema to Israel.

Israel views Hezbollah, which for a time was listed by Washington as a terrorist group, as its mortal enemy. "Washington will need to convince Israeli officials that they must abandon their aim of eliminating Hezbollah as a political force," Brennan wrote in the article, published in the July issue of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

The new administration, he wrote, must also "be willing to exercise strategic patience" with Iran. The goal, he said, would be to strike a more nuanced and less absolutist policy, a direct dialogue to encourage Iran's moderates to shun the use of terrorist violence, without appearing to tolerate that violence. Similar views about Iran were expressed by Robert M. Gates before Bush selected him as secretary of defense, giving Brennan a key potential ally in the months ahead. "
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Another interesting choice. An insider with less than popular* views on rendition and torture. A good choice from what I can gather from the article.

Edit to add: *opposed to the popular view pushed these past decade that rendition and torture are okee-dokee.