US president-elect Barack Obama unveiled his national security team on Dec. 1, including Senator Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, Susan Elizabeth Rice, a key adviser on foreign policy during his campaign for the presidency, as US ambassador to the UN, and James L. Jones, NATO SACEUR & COMUSEUCOM as his National Security Adviser.
Obama also announced that he would keep the Defense Secretary in his current post, and he also nominated Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary while Eric Holder will be appointed attorney general.
Public opinion believes the nominations will make a “powerful team”. However there was much controversy over the nomination of Hillary for she had criticized some of Obama’s foreign policies, and she and her husband, former Democratic president Clinton had a conflict of interest in overseas donations and lobbying. However, the conflict was later solved as Hillary made some concessions.
Obama’s move to keep the current Defense Secretary in his post has won public praise. This is because Gates is republican, and Obama needed to nominate at least one republican in his cabinet to fulfill his promise of uniting the two parties and weakening the party politics. Additionally, compared with his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, Gates is rich in management skills and capable of uniting colleagues and his rectification of the Department of Defense was effective. Gate also advocated for the shutdown of US prison at Guantanomo Bay, and called for reevaluation and readjustment of the strategy on Afghanistan, which happened to coincide with Obama’s view point.
General Jones, 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps and NATO SACEUR & COMUSEUCOM, attended the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in his early years. He once served as one of the military advisors during Iraq War. He used to criticize the commanding of the Iraq war as inappropriate.
The nomination of General Jones and Gates will help Obama withdraw US troops from Iraq and send more troops to Afghanistan.
The most severe challenge Obama’s team faces, is how to win the global war on terror and safeguard US security and interest.
The bilateral security pact between the US and Iraq that the Iraqi parliament passed not long ago, could possibly hamper Obama’s initiative of troop withdrawal. According to the pact, the US will not complete its troop withdrawal until the end of 2011, which formed a huge difference with the 16-month withdrawal plan Obama had made in his presidential campaign. Even if he could make some changes, it still remains a problem whether US could complete withdrawal on time, particularly, if order in Iraq still could not be retained 16 months from now.
Secondly, the violence in Iraq over the past years has escalated sharply, almost beyond control. The anti-US sentiment is amounting in consideration to the US bombardment and heavy civilian casualties. Even Afghan president Hamid Karzai felt it uneasy. “We Afghanis don’t understand why Taliban forces still exist,” said Karzai at a press conference with NATO Secretary recently and he demanded a ceasefire timetable from NATO. It is a huge challenge for the Obama administration to put an end to the escalating violence in the war-torn country.
Lastly, the US insisted on deploying an anti-missile system in east Europe which soured US-Russia relations. On the anti-missile issue, Obama noted he would not oppose anti-missile deployment as long as the technique was up to the standard. He left enough space for himself. But the US government has signed official agreements with Poland and Czech, he would face consequences if drew back.
According to the fixed policy of the Bucharest Meeting, NATO will sooner or later extend membership to Georgia and Ukraine. Will Obama give up the schedule of NATO’s eastward expansion to soften ties with Russia? The US president-elect also found himself caught in a dilemma. Meanwhile, nuclear issues in Iraq and DPRK are also severe challenges Obama’s diplomatic and security team can’t afford to underestimate.
By People's Daily Online
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