The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged ben rhodes

All Eyes on Kandahar Strategy

By | 06.15.10 | 8:18 am

That’s going to be the focus of this morning’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this morning with Gen. David Petraeus and Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, and tomorrow’s complementary hearings in the House. Both The New York Times and The Washington Post have big stories on congressional More…

Drones: The First Test for Obama’s ‘Rules-Based Internationalism’

By | 05.28.10 | 8:44 am

Just as the National Security Strategy places an international order based on binding global norms at the center of President Obama’s foreign policy, a United Nations official tells Charlie Savage of The New York Times that Obama’s drone strikes ought to come to end:

America’s Global Outlook, at an ‘Inflection Point’

By | 05.28.10 | 6:00 am

“We’re at an inflection point,” Ben Rhodes observed about the United States’ global outlook, a year and a half into the Obama presidency.

Rhodes speaks from a unique vantage point. He’s the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, a title that obscures his importance as one of President Obama’s More…

Conference Won’t Create New International Infrastructure to Secure All Nuke Materials

By | 04.09.10 | 12:31 pm

Previewing next week’s 47-nation Washington conference on nuclear security, senior National Security Council aides Gary Samore and Ben Rhodes told reporters that they expect the meeting to resolve with specific national commitments that “rally collective action behind the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material within four years,” (in Rhodes’ More…

At Least Jami Miscik Gets a Traditionally Powerless Administration Job

By | 12.23.09 | 2:28 pm

In the days after the 2008 election, I fretted over the inclusion of a former senior CIA official named Jami Miscik on the Obama transition team’s intelligence desk. Why? This is why:

Miscik, you see, was head of intelligence analysis during the 2002 turmoil over Iraq’s non-existent weapons of

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White House National Security Staffers Shift

By | 10.01.09 | 12:30 pm

Just released from the White House communications shop:

The White House today announced that Deputy National Security Director and National Security Council chief of staff Mark Lippert will be returning to active duty in the U.S. Navy. Denis McDonough will remain Deputy National Security Advisor and assume the role of

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The Wise Men Start Rethinking Afghanistan

By | 08.10.09 | 4:26 pm

Via Marc Lynch’s Twitter feed, Lee Hamilton — 9/11 Commissioner, Iraq Study Grouper, former Indiana Congressman, all-around wise man — asks some very fundamental questions about the Afghanistan war:

Strategically, there are two broad and fundamental questions to be answered. First, how will our departure impact our regional

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Maybe Give This Guy a Job? UPDATED BECAUSE HE HAS ONE

By | 01.16.09 | 12:29 pm

Politico’s Ben Smith adds to Laura Rozen’s report on President-elect Barack Obama’s South Asia-themed dinner last week. Ben learns that Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi was there, along with an important defense adviser to Obama’s presidential campaign, Air Force Maj. Gen. Scott Gration (Ret).

That raises a question: More…

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

By | 01.16.09 | 10:26 am

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 More…

Want To Embarrass An Obama Aide? Link Him To Me

By | 11.13.08 | 1:23 pm

So did you see that bonkers New York Times piece about how you have to disclose all your embarrassing IMs and Facebook messages and Twitters if you want a job in an Obama administration? Well, perhaps it’s too late for some. The New York Observer’s Gillian Reagan did a More…