Obama's Brain Trust

Sarah Sewall is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Sewall was deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance during the Clinton administration.

Sewall collaborated with Gen. David Petraeus to rewrite the Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency field guide. In a Washington Post op-ed, Sewall said the guide stressed the need for counterinsurgent forces to integrate into the population, "assuming more physical risk to soldiers." She also said humanitarian assistance and construction projects are "critical to the fight." Sewall also criticized the Bush "surge" strategy as having "too few capable U.S., allied and Iraqi counterinsurgent forces; weak U.S. efforts at promoting political and economic reform; and corrupt or feckless Iraqi institutions and leadership." In a Foreign Service Journal article in 2007, Sewall called for a national doctrine (PDF) that clearly delineates civilian and military responsibilities in nation building during a counterinsurgency campaign.

Foreign Policy Advisers
Obama's diverse group of foreign policy advisers includes former National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, prominent lawyer and State Department veteran Gregory B. Craig, and Africa expert Susan E. Rice. All three held top positions in Bill Clinton's administration. Like Obama, his advisers are critical of the Bush foreign policy agenda in Iraq and Afghanistan, on Darfur, and with respect to U.S.-Latin America relations, among others.

Gregory B. Craig, a former Clinton White House aide, served as director of policy planning under former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Craig is a partner at the Washington-based Williams & Connolly law firm. Among his most prominent cases was the defense of President Clinton against his impeachment. From 1984 to 1988, Craig served as senior adviser on defense, foreign policy, and national security issues for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).

In March 2008, Craig criticized the Bush administration for "taking sides" in various Latin American elections. As a result, he said, the United States has become increasingly unpopular in the region. He also criticized President Bush for abandoning former President Clinton's strategy to work with Latin America "as a whole," rather than to try to take advantage of U.S. negotiating leverage and deal with the region on its trade considerations in bits and pieces." Above all, Craig faulted the Bush administration for having "ignored" Latin America.

Anthony Lake was a national security adviser to President Clinton and is now a professor at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Lake served under President Clinton during several major foreign policy crises, including the conflicts in Bosnia and Somalia, among others. Lake advocated keeping a U.S. presence in Somalia even after many voices in the United States called for a withdrawal. In an interview with PBS' Frontline, Lake said, "I still believe that if we had immediately turned tail in Somalia, there would have been other similar tragedies around the world."

On the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region, in 2006, Lake, with Susan Rice, urged the United States to "press for a UN resolution that issues Sudan an ultimatum: accept unconditional deployment of the UN force within one week or face military consequences." In a Washington Post op-ed, Lake and Rice argued that the United States could also intervene in Darfur without UN approval. "The United States acted without UN blessing in 1999 in Kosovo to confront a lesser humanitarian crisis (perhaps 10,000 killed) and a more formidable adversary," they wrote.