Rudy Picks a Stellar Foreign Policy Team

Ed Lasky at American Thinker has the story on the announcement of GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy team....and the names on it are extremely heartening, to say the least.

Here's the lineup, announced by Giuliani July 10th:

Charles Hill is a diplomat's diplomat who was he was political counselor for the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and was director of Israel and Arab-Israeli affairs. His worldview is aptly described as Reaganesque, and he dates from that era. He's described as having "fundamental faith in the righteousness of American power, properly wielded."

Norman Podhoretz is a leading conservative intellectual and the former editor of Commentary magazine (he is now editor-at-large). As some of you know, he favors confronting Iran and Islamic extremism, rather than appeasing them.

Senator Bob Kasten was known as an outspoken Reagan conservative as Senator (1981-1993) who wrote a book on the anti-American bias of the UN. He's reportedly very well known and respected.

Stephen Rosen is a distinguished professor of national Security and Military Affairs at Harvard University and an acknowledged expert on this subject.

S. Enders Wimbush is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank. His specialty is so-called public diplomacy - the `hearts and minds' stuff Bush appointee Karen Hughes has been so lame at.Aside from vast experience dealing with foreign governments for corporate and government clients. Wimbush was also the director of the highly successful Radio Liberty in Europe.

Martin Kramer likewise hails from Harvard, and is an Olin Institute Senior Fellow there. His credentials are extensive, and will drive the Angry left absolutely insane.

Born in Washington DC, he was a protege of Itamar Rabinovich at Tel Aviv University, as well as Fouad Ajami, L. Carl Brown, the late Charles Issawi, and Bernard Lewis, all at Princeton. (Lewis directed his doctoral thesis.) He headed the Dayan Center in Israel, has done extensive research on Hezbollah, and is an authority on Islam and Arab Politics. He's an outspoken supporter of the America-Israel alliance, ( which will likely play well with Evangelicals in the GOP) and one of the leaders in exposing radical Islam's penetration of American society and Saudi funding in academia of Middle East Studies Departments on American campuses..and wrote a book on the subject, showing how that funding is enabling the hiring and promotion of professors whom teach from an anti-American and anti-Israel viewpoint.

Like I said, the Angry Left will love him.

Kim Holmes hails from The Heritage Foundation, a major conservative think-tank. Holmes' major focus is on the areas of homeland security and border control.

Peter Berkowitz is affiliated with the Hoover Institution and also teaches at George Mason University School of Law. Berkowitz has written widely on his particular field of expertise - the subject of intelligence and legal issues dealing with terrorism.

Looking at this crew, one gets a pretty good idea of Rudy's idea of where a Giuliani presidency might be headed on security, defense and foreign policy issues, and how he might be planning to deal with them as president.