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 chief of staff to the National Security Council. Ben Rhodes will assume the role of Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications. Nate Tibbits will be the Executive Secretary of the National Security Council.

Ben Smith at Politico had the scoop on McDonough’s advancement. And as many, many people at the Pentagon and State Department will tell you — with varying degrees of frustration — the White House is where foreign policy is made in the Obama administration.

Strategically, there are two broad and fundamental questions to be answered. First, how will our departure impact our regional and security interests over the next decade and longer? And second, is this type of war really the best use of American power and resources in today’s world?

Unfortunately, that’s the end of Hamilton’s op-ed, which, if anything, signifies that establishment foreign policy is starting to become comfortable throwing those questions out but isn’t yet comfortable offering answers. But still. Hamilton isn’t just any greybeard, he’s one President Obama respects and listens to, as one of Obama’s top foreign policy advisers, Ben Rhodes, worked for Hamilton for years. Hamilton endorsed Obama at a critical period in the primaries. Just before Obama’s inauguration, Hamilton hosted a dinner for him with a number of foreign-policy luminaries. Michael Cohen is right to see something changing.

On Wednesday morning, Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be bringing his whole interagency crew to talk at the Center for American Progress. That should be a good tableau for presenting — and perhaps addressing — progressive agita over the state of the Afghanistan war.

That raises a question: why doesn’t — as best I can tell — Gration have a job in the administration?

Now, maybe he will. But building on something that both Laura and I have reported, it’s somewhat bizarre that of the campaign’s foreign policy inner circle, only U.N. Ambassador-designate Susan Rice has a senior position. Richard Danzig isn’t going to be deputy defense secretary. We’re still waiting to hear about Gration, Ben Rhodes, Denis McDonough and Samantha Power, all of whom were instrumental to designing the Obama campaign’s foreign policy positions. Obama, from what I understand, is still close with all of them, but it’s still unclear where, if anywhere, they’ll find themselves during in the administration.

(For all the Obama-Kremlinologists out there, let me be really, really clear that I am just musing on this on my own behalf, not channelling any of the aforementioned individuals’ thinking. So please no speculation to the contrary.)

Update: Thanks to alert commenter RecordChecker, it appears that Gration will be NASA Administrator. So that’s one down! Apologies for missing this.

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.

OK, so I’m not really an American Prospect writer, but still. Ben, good luck to you. To quote Biggie Smalls, I hear UPS is hiring.