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"Change" an ever-increasing illusion

"There is not a single, solid anti-war voice in the upper echelons of the Obama foreign policy apparatus. And this is the point: Obama is not going to fundamentally change US foreign policy. He is a status quo Democrat. And that is why the mono-partisan Washington insiders are gushing over Obama's new team. At the same time, it is also disingenuous to act as though Obama is engaging in some epic betrayal. Of course these appointments contradict his campaign rhetoric of change. But move past the speeches and Obama's selections are very much in sync with his record and the foreign policy vision he articulated on the campaign trail, from his pledge to escalate the war in Afghanistan to his "residual force" plan in Iraq to his vow to use unilateral force in Pakistan to defend US interests to his posturing on Iran. "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel," Obama said in his famed speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last summer. "Sometimes, there are no alternatives to confrontation."

So writes Jeremy Scahill in Comment is Free in The Guardian. The piece is appropriately named:

"Barack Obama's kettle of hawks
The absence of a solid anti-war voice on Obama's national security team means that US foreign policy isn't going to change"

More than disappointing is to see that all that hype about "change" coming to Washington with Obama is quite illusory. Obama won't be another Bush & Co. but don't expect, let alone wait for, any real changes in US policy.

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