[Peace-discuss] Again, the new bosses...

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Since the "Realists" in the Permanent Government of the US (i.e., those who see
that policy is insulated from politics) displaced the Neocons in the last year
of the lesser Bush, it's been clear that the next administration will be largely
continuous with the present one -- as the probable perduring presences of Gates
(at the Pentagon) & Petraeus (at CentCom) make clear.  But the WaPo below gives
some even more startling evidence of continuity, not contradiction, in policy.
--CGE]

    washingtonpost.com
    Sometimes Continuity Trumps Change
    Three Bush Appointees in Crucial Positions Likely to Remain Under Obama

    By Alec MacGillis and Ann Scott Tyson
    Washington Post Staff Writers
    Monday, November 10, 2008; A01

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to fill top positions for his incoming
government, he faces a stubborn reality: Some of the key individuals he will
rely upon to tackle the country's most serious challenges are holdovers from the
current administration -- a trio of Bush appointees who will likely stay in
place for at least the first year or two of Obama's presidency.

In confronting the financial crisis and weakening economy, Obama must turn to
Ben S. Bernanke, a Republican and former chairman of President Bush's Council of
Economic Advisers, who will lead the Federal Reserve for at least the first year
of the new administration.

In assuming control of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama must work with
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was appointed by
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for a two-year term that will end in late 2009
and, by tradition, can expect to be appointed for a second term as the
president's top military adviser. Mullen shares Obama's belief in focusing more
on Afghanistan but is wary of a timeline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

And in guarding against terrorist attacks -- while correcting what he considers
the Bush administration's excesses -- Obama will rely upon FBI Director Robert
S. Mueller III, whose term expires in 2011.

Obama has made it a point of pride to seek consensus with those who do not fully
agree with him, and he is even considering keeping Gates at the Pentagon to
ensure a smooth transition. But the need to rely heavily on officials who served
in the Bush administration -- an era from which he promises a sharp break --
underscores his constraints. His campaign's success was based partly on the
selection of a team he personally trusted, but in his first years in the White
House, he will not be able to rely solely on advisers of his choosing.

"It's a challenge," but not an insurmountable one, said William A. Galston, a
domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton. Bernanke, Mullen and Mueller
"appear to be genuinely public-spirited civil servants and not rabid partisans,"
he said, adding that "if you're thinking about how to deal with someone like J.
Edgar Hoover, this is not what we're talking about."

And Obama might be uniquely suited to the task, said Galston, a governance
expert at the Brookings Institution. "This is not someone who feels comfortable
[only if] he has constructed his own cocoon around him. We've had presidents
like that, but he's not one of them. His life has trained him to move through
different environments and adjust accordingly."

The Fed's Consensus Builder

Few officials will be as pivotal in Obama's first years in office as Bernanke, a
leading authority on the Great Depression who is helping lead the country
through a likely recession.

Bernanke was appointed by Bush to a four-year term that began in early 2006,
under a system designed to keep the Fed independent from political pressure. But
the Fed chairman also serves as the economist in chief, routinely meeting with
the president to offer advice and collaborating closely with the Treasury secretary.

Obama and Bernanke have spoken on the phone several times, and met in person
once, at Obama's request. In that meeting, held in Bernanke's office, Obama
stressed that he respects the independence of the Fed. That suggests he will
follow the recent precedent, set by Clinton and Bush, of not jawboning the
central bank toward his preferred monetary policy, as aides to Presidents Ronald
Reagan and George H.W. Bush did.

There is reason to think Obama and Bernanke will get along. Although Bernanke is
a Republican, his response to the financial crisis has won him plaudits from
congressional Democrats who view him as pragmatic and non-ideological. The
former Princeton professor has a calm manner, a penchant for building consensus
and unquestioned academic expertise, qualities valued by Obama.

Finally, the top candidates to be Treasury secretary have strong relationships
with Bernanke. Lawrence H. Summers, who held the position for part of the
Clinton administration, has known Bernanke for decades. And Timothy F. Geithner,
president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has been among Bernanke's
closest collaborators during the financial crisis; they speak by phone many
times each day and more than a few times have spoken through the night.

Obama will have to decide by January 2010 whether to reappoint Bernanke. The
decision could hinge on a number of factors, including how the economy does in
the coming year, whether the two men develop a good rapport, Obama's view on
whether Bernanke should have been more aggressive in preventing a crisis and how
eager Obama is to put a Democrat in the job.

A Troop Withdrawal Debate

On Thursday, Mullen sent a note to his staff members, urging them to assist the
Obama team. "Transitions of administrations have in the past proven challenging
and even awkward," he wrote. "Our duty will be to remain apolitical."

As Obama's chief military adviser for at least the next year, Mullen will lay
out options for Iraq and Afghanistan, define the global risks the military
faces, weigh the strain on the force and advise on budget priorities. Mullen
moved early to create a Joint Staff transition team for the handover period. "My
goal is to be foundational -- and sort of a rock during that change," he said in
October 2007.

On the two wars, Mullen's views align broadly with those of the president-elect:
He sees an urgent need to devote more troops and resources to Afghanistan, and
he supports continuing troop reductions from Iraq. But there are also important
differences: Although Obama has long cast Afghanistan as the only legitimate war
to pursue in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Mullen's priorities for
that country are driven more by the escalating insurgency since 2006 than by any
sense that Iraq is the wrong war for U.S. troops.

In Mullen's ranking of military priorities, Iraq takes precedence, then
Afghanistan, followed by finding ways to reduce the overall strain on the
nation's fighting forces. Unlike Obama, who pledges to withdraw U.S. combat
brigades from Iraq by mid-2010, Mullen opposes any drawdown timeline there as
"dangerous," saying reductions must depend on conditions on the ground.

Mullen's view coincides with that of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the former top U.S.
commander in Iraq who now heads U.S. Central Command, with responsibility for
operations in both war zones.

Obama's relationship with Mullen and other military advisers could prove smooth
and productive if Obama takes the pragmatic approach that his advisers are
indicating, allowing each side to adjust at the margins, defense experts said.
But if Obama presses for the withdrawal of two brigades per month, conflict is
inevitable, they warn.

"That would be hard for Mullen, exceedingly hard for Petraeus, and almost
impossible for [Gen. Ray] Odierno," who replaced Petraeus as the top U.S.
commander in Iraq, said Peter D. Feaver, a national security official in the
Clinton and Bush administrations and professor at Duke University. "That would
be a civil-military crisis."

Petraeus, who has wielded great influence after his success overseeing the troop
"surge" in Iraq, will remain a pivotal figure well into the Obama
administration. His appointment as chief of Central Command lasts for three
years. If Mullen is reappointed in 2009, Obama can decide on the next chairman
in 2011, and Petraeus is considered one of the most highly qualified officers
for that job.

"Petraeus will make every effort to avoid a confrontation. But he does have that
independent credibility because he's been very successful, and because of the
personal attacks by the left wing of the Democratic Party, where Obama came
from, Obama will have to treat him very gingerly," said Thomas Donnelly, a
defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute.

During Petraeus's highly publicized congressional testimony in the fall of 2007,
Obama, then campaigning for the Democratic nomination, criticized what he
considered the shifting standards for the U.S. mission in Iraq. "We have now set
the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic
situation . . . is considered success," he said. "And it's not."

Although it may seem that Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war puts him at
odds with Mullen and Petraeus, that overlooks the fact that many military
officers were unsure about the war at the outset, said Rep. James P. Moran Jr.,
a Virginia Democrat who sits on the House Appropriations subcommittee on
defense. And there is considerable agreement with Obama that there needs to be a
greater emphasis on diplomacy, civilian aid and counterinsurgency techniques to
augment conventional military action.

"You're going to see a lot more sympathy than you might expect between Obama and
his chief military advisers," Moran said.

Mullen has only briefly met Obama, said Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman for
Mullen. But Mullen's portfolio, which includes global strategy as well as
strains on the force, encompasses all military issues Obama must address.

Obama made those global demands clear after a two-hour briefing in July in
Baghdad by Petraeus, who reportedly assembled a slew of maps, charts and
PowerPoint slides to argue against a 16-month timetable for withdrawing most
troops from Iraq. An intense exchange followed, during which Obama emphasized
that as president he would not "rubber-stamp" the recommendations of a ground
commander, and that he would consider a range of factors beyond the conditions
in one country or region.

"Sometimes it is appropriate for the president to overrule a military
commander," Feaver said. "Obama's statement was spot on."

 From 9/11 to Local Crime

Mueller took over as FBI director days before terrorists struck the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon in 2001. Since then, he has scrambled to reorient the
bureau toward domestic intelligence gathering.

Mueller, a Justice Department official under George H.W. Bush, has had little
contact with Obama -- and, at first glance, a former constitutional law
professor such as Obama and a FBI man may seem unlikely to have much in common.
But Mueller is known to many of Obama's advisers, including campaign co-chairman
Eric H. Holder Jr. While U.S. attorney in the District, Holder hired Mueller as
chief of the homicide section and later sent him to shore up the U.S. attorney's
office in San Francisco.

Behind the scenes, Mueller has pushed back on some of the more controversial
legal policy decisions during the George W. Bush years. In 2004, along with
other senior Justice officials, Mueller was prepared to resign over the
administration's warrantless wiretapping program. He removed FBI agents from
interrogation sessions of terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval
base in Cuba after hearing allegations of abuse.

Obama will have direct contact with Mueller at weekly threat briefings, during
which he will receive raw intelligence about terrorist movements. Though few FBI
directors have lasted their full 10-year terms, Mueller has given no public
indications of planning to leave government.

In some areas, Mueller has signaled agreement with Obama's priorities. In a
rarity among Bush administration officials, Mueller has backed calls by local
and state police for more resources to combat traditional crimes. During the
campaign, Obama called for more funds to support such authorities, and he and
Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. said they would consider additional
funding to hire more FBI agents to shore up ordinary criminal enforcement.

But the FBI may part company with Obama on other issues. Mueller has championed
new guidelines, set to take effect Dec. 1, that give agents pursuing terrorism
leads the power to conduct long-term surveillance of suspects, engage in pretext
interviews in which agents conceal their identities and infiltrate groups that
the FBI thinks may threaten national security. Obama has not spoken out on the
guidelines, which have roiled civil-liberties advocates, but has indicated
support for a new domestic intelligence czar who would provide more oversight of
the FBI's intelligence operations.

As an Illinois state senator, Obama helped pass a law that required taping law
enforcement interviews with suspects in death-penalty cases. FBI agents have
resisted an across-the-board requirement for interview taping.

Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said he foresees
Obama pushing the FBI to put more resources into white-collar crimes linked to
the financial meltdown, as well as hate crimes. Davis also predicted that the
two men would agree on the need to involve Congress more in such debates than
has been the case under Bush.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said he found it hard to imagine any
intransigence among holdover officials under an Obama administration. "Do we
expect them not to be like everyone else and say no to this person who has an
overwhelming mandate?" he said. "He's president-elect of the United States . . .
It bodes well for anyone who works for the administration to give their opinion
-- to make sure it's a sound opinion and voice it."

Staff writers Neil Irwin and Carrie Johnson contributed to this report.