Former regime element joins Obama team

Brett
McGurk, who I ran into in the Green Zone when he was negotiating the SOFA
with the government of Iraq, has been named
U.S. ambassador to Iraq. This is good because he knows all the promises
Maliki has made over the years, not just to the U.S. but to Kurds and others,
and so might be able to better forestall the prime minister's various attempts
to re-negotiate all his deals.

No
word on whether he had to take an oath renouncing all support for the Bush administration.