President Barack Obama

It is expected that on Monday President-elect Barack Obama will announce the names of his national security team, leading with Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. It is being reported that former President Bill Clinton agreed to publicly reveal the names of hundreds of thousands of donors to his foundation to pave the way for his wife to secure the coveted post of Secretary of State.

It is believed that other selections for Obama’s national security team include the current Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who is a Republican. Also to be named are retired Marine Corps General James Jones as White House national security adviser, and Susan Rice, who has been advising Barack Obama foreign policy matters, as. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The priorities and challenges facing the new Obama administration and its national security team are daunting. These include extricating American troops from Iraq, confronting the growing strength of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, while repairing damage to the international image of the United States incurred during the Bush administration.

It is being reported that Robert Gates, currently Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration, will retain his post for a transition period of about one-year. It is expected that a formal announcement will made next week by President-elect Barack Obama when he discloses his choices for his administration’s national security team.

Keeping Gates at Defense will provide Obama with a defense secretary who has garnered support from both sides of the aisle in Congress. Gates also has considerable experience with foreign leaders throughout the world and he is highly respected by the top military brass. Under a President Obama, Secretary Gates will have to transition from serving the President who initiated the Iraq war to serving under Barack Obama, who opposed the war from the beginning and has pledged to end it and bring the American troops home.

Barack Obama has apparently decided to set aside concerns that he would upset anti-war supporters after conducting an election campaign in which he made his consistent opposition to the Iraq war one of his key issues.