Will Obama Stack His Middle East Team with Neoconservative Ideologues?

Will Obama Stack His Middle East Team with Neoconservative Ideologues?
By John Tirman, AlterNet. Posted January 27, 2009.

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Particularly upsetting to growing numbers of policy analysts, former diplomats and liberal activists are the widespread rumors of who would take on the ultrasensitive posts managing affairs in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and South Asia.

According to these reports, Dennis Ross would become a special envoy whose portfolio includes Iran, and possibly the entire region; Richard Holbrooke would take the special envoy slot for Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; and Richard Haass would take on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Just after the inauguration, Holbrooke was announced for his rumored slot, and former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, was given the job of addressing the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio. By the end of the inauguration week, there was no official word on Ross. Holbrooke, Ross and Mitchell have been affiliated with groups that are overtly hostile to Iran, and it is that record of belligerence that has many who hope for a change of course wary.

Since 2001, Ross, the tirelessly unsuccessful Mideast negotiator under George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, has been employed by the Israeli-backed Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the policy arm of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a key component of the Israel lobby in the United States. (WINEP was founded by Martin Indyk, another Clinton-era diplomat who may play a role in the Obama government.) Holbrooke, former U.N. envoy under Clinton, headed an ad hoc group called United Against a Nuclear Iran, which advocates military action against Iran if U.S.-defined terms are not met; Ross belongs to that group, and to a so-called Bipartisan Policy Center, which similarly advocates an extremely militant stance toward Iran. (Mitchell is one of four co-chairs of the latter group.) All of these organizations are populated by neocons and reflect what could charitably be called a "Cheney-plus" strategic vision.

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http://www.alternet.org/audits/122174/will_obama_stack_his_middle_east_team_with_neoconservative_ideologues/

Obama however should steer clear of any whiff of neoconservatism.

"What is going to work" could mean many things. You might wish to clarify what you think the goals are and who it is that benefits and/or suffers from that thing that is "working."

Left on it's own "what is going to work" doesn't really say anything.

Amazing lack of discourse here.

You do the math.