Obama’s Dinner With His Old Friends And His Potential South Asia Policy

On her excellent new Foreign Policy blog, Laura Rozen has a great scoop about a secret dinner last week between President-elect Obama at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars downtown. In attendance were Democratic foreign-policy wise man Lee Hamilton — whom, as Laura notes, has mentored many of Obama’s foreign policy advisers — and still-trusted aide/friend Samantha Power; and Iran scholar (briefly imprisoned by the regime) Haleh Esfandiari and Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, who might know more about South Asian politics than any other single person.

Obviously I wasn’t at the meeting, and no one would tell Laura what was discussed. But if Obama was trying to figure out what to do about Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India; what’s in America’s interest; and what’s in line with America’s values — well, then, those are four people it makes sense to break bread with.