Obama Should Give Thanks - For Bush

Jules Crittenden sums up the gifts Obama inherits from the Bush Administration. The conclusion:

George W. Bush did not solve all the problems of the world's most troubled and dangerous region. But, for all his shortcomings, he has moved them forward and established the United States as the dominant agent for change in the Middle East. Consider the mess Obama would be inheriting in the region if the Bush administration had just sat on its thumbs-Ahmadinejad's Iran with an even further advanced nuclear arms program, an aging Saddam installing one of his psychopathic sons in power or Iraq being torn apart in a genocidal nightmare. Imagine all the regimes of the region, unchastened and unimpressed by the U.S. exercise of power, looking for any weakness or advantage to exploit and quite possibly finding it in al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Bush has set conditions that could allow Obama, if he abandons the desire to be liked as the underlying principle of his foreign policy and sticks to the path the Bush administration has laid out, to preside over the greatest blossoming of liberal democracy and stability the Middle East has ever seen, and in all likelihood, to get the credit for it.

I think Obama's choice of Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State makes this possible.

Anti-War Groups Afraid To Criticize Obama

Interesting. I guess they're hoisted on their own petard:

Antiwar groups and other liberal activists are increasingly concerned at signs that Barack Obama's national security team will be dominated by appointees who favored the Iraq invasion and hold hawkish views on other important foreign policy issues.

The activists -- key members of the coalition that propelled Obama to the White House -- fear he is drifting from the antiwar moorings of his once-longshot presidential candidacy. Obama has eased the rigid timetable he had set for withdrawing troops from Iraq, and he appears to be leaning toward the center in his candidates to fill key national security posts.

"There's so much Obama hero worship, we're having to walk this line where we can't directly criticize him," he said. "But we are expressing concern."

That's the problem with idealizing someone to this degree. It comes back to bite you in the ass. All over the internet there's wailing and gnashing of teeth about Joe Lieberman being welcomed back into the Democrat fold and Hillary Clinton being asked to be Secretary of State.

Of course, from my perspective, every time he breaks a promise it's good news. And particularly in this case, because the war is essentially over and a timetable for withdrawal is in place. For Obama to summarily withdraw at this point would be to endanger the progress that has been made.