Obama will/may be OK after all for Turkey

Recent news reports indicate that Barack Obama has been receiving advice from Brent Scowcroft.[1]

Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft wrote a Washington Post piece, entitled “Middle East priorities for Jan. 21,”on November 21, 2008. “We believe that the Arab-Israeli peace process is one issue that requires priority attention,…The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a non militarized Palestinian state.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was deputy national-security adviser under Mr. Scowcroft in the George H.W. Bush administration, was also retained by President elect Obama, a Scowcroft protégé and another close Scowcroft friend, Gen. James Jones was tapped for the National Security Council. Other prominent Republicans with close ties to Mr. Obama include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed the Democrat in the final days of the campaign, and Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who shares Mr. Scowcroft’s philosophy and has the distinction of getting a very poor report card from the Armenian National Committee of America.

First thing on their plate will be the conflict at Gaza. However come April the Turkish position will be made very clearly for the new president.

[1] Brent Scowcroft (born March 19, 1925 in Ogden, Utah) was the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and a Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He also served as Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Brent Scowcroft, is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Turkish Council (ATC)

Labels: diplomacy, politics, USA