Obama's Brain Trust

Introduction
Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) foreign policy agenda has emphasized multilateralism and reinvigorated diplomacy to advance U.S. interests. He has pledged to take steps to end the war in Iraq soon after taking office, to negotiate with the leadership of U.S. adversaries like Iran and Cuba, and to revamp the U.S. approach to free trade to bolster labor and environmental protections. Obama has attracted as advisers a number of top foreign policy experts who served under President Bill Clinton. Those advisers tend to be more independent from party orthodoxy on foreign policy issues, analysts say. Obama's top advisers were opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, although a number of prominent Democrats, including rival Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), supported the action at the time. Obama's advisers generally appear to agree with his belief that it is "important for the United States not just to talk to its friends but also to talk to its enemies.

A New Foreign Policy Vision
Obama was elected to the Senate in 2005 and serves on the Foreign Relations Committee. Prior to that, his professional experience was primarily confined to Illinois, where he served as a state legislator representing a Chicago district, and before that, a community activist. He has cited his personal background-his Kenyan-born father and a youth spent in Indonesia-as crucial to the development of his world view. Like other presidential campaigns, Obama's draws on a long list of advisers on foreign policy matters. The most senior include several ranking Clinton administration officials, the Brookings Institution's Susan E. Rice, former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, and former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig.

"This is a team that's very reflective of Obama, who has made it pretty clear in his speeches and statements during the campaign that he believes that diplomacy has been undervalued over the past few years and that the United States shouldn't fear to negotiate," says Derek Chollet, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who advised John Edwards' presidential campaign.

If Obama wins the general election in November, his foreign policy and economic agendas will surely break with the legacies of the Bush administration, experts say. "Whether it's our approach to torture, or climate change, or how we're dealing with Iran, to Iraq, to the Middle East peace process you're going to see significant changes," says Chollet, who is not connected to the Obama campaign. Obama advocates a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions, and has said the United States should invest $150 billion over ten years to advance clean-energy technology. Obama has also been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, which he opposed from its outset in 2002. He has said he will withdraw troops from Iraq and refocus U.S. military efforts against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

National Security Advisers
Obama has stressed his commitment to winning the battle against Taliban forces in Afghanistan. He has also vowed that he would pursue al-Qaeda elements into Pakistan, with or without government permission, if he had strong intelligence the group was planning an attack on the United States.

Obama's leading national security advisers include:

Denis McDonough, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the national security coordinator for Obama's campaign. McDonough was foreign policy adviser to former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. McDonough has been outspoken on energy and environmental policy. In June 2007, McDonough urged the Group of Eight (G8) to take action to combat climate change, and warned that current levels of development assistance are "woefully insufficient" to help underdeveloped nations deal with climate change. McDonough has also said that the United States should do more to "promote the development of our domestic clean energy sector industry." McDonough said on a Brookings Institution panel in May 2007 that it is "far past time" for the United States to institute a cap-and-trade system mandating "very aggressive reductions" in greenhouse gases, with the goal of an 80 percent reduction over 1990 levels by 2050.