The North Korean Conundrum

As Barack Obama assembles his foreign policy team, he appears to be drawing from two primary sources: the Clinton faithful and Republican renegades. These old dogs might be up for some new tricks, but one risk of relying on such "experience" could be the triumph of conventional thinking in Washington -- when the world expects, and the times demand, fundamental change.

These foreign policy mandarins will certainly counsel a tempering of the worst excesses of the Bush administration legacy -- on torture, global warming, and adherence to international treaties.