Bush team lays ground for Obama foreign policy

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By Nicholas Kralev

Sen. Barack Obama's rise to the presidency has freed the Bush administration to advance reconciliatory policies toward hostile foreign regimes in ways that would have been more difficult had Sen. John McCain won, diplomats and analysts said Wednesday.

Some of those policies, such as negotiating with North Korea and making overtures to Iran, represent a dramatic shift for President Bush and have been criticized repeatedly by many Republicans, including former administration officials.

Mr. Obama, however, praised those changes during the campaign, saying that the administration finally had gotten it right.

"We want to build on areas where there is some prospect of progress," said a senior administration official involved in the transition, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak for Mr. Obama's team.

"My sense is that you are probably going to see a fair amount of continuity in a number of those areas in terms of the substance of the approaches," he said.

The official said the "hardest thing" during such a period is "to anticipate challenges and crises" -- such as Russia's threat Wednesday to deploy missiles near its border with NATO member Poland -- but that the team is preparing for "decision points during the first six months of 2009."

During briefings on controversial issues, "you put as dispassionately as you can where we are, how we got there and what are the options before you," he said.

Diplomats said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her team have prepared the ground for direct talks with Iran and progress on a nuclear deal with North Korea.

"The Department of State will do everything that we can, and I personally will do everything that I can, to make sure that this is a smooth transition," Miss Rice told reporters, adding, "as an African American, I'm especially proud" of Mr. Obama's election.

Although the administration opposes Mr. Obama's call for unconditional talks with Iran, it has sent representatives to multilateral meetings with Iranian officials and is expected to announce its desire to send U.S. diplomats to staff a U.S. interest section in Tehran as early as this month.