I suspect that a lot of people on the left will immediately attack Robert Gates for his history in the CIA and his dishonesty during the Iran-Contra controversy. That’s understandable. But I have a couple things to say about his appointment.
First, you didn’t expect Bush to nominate someone that we agree with politically, did you? We could have done a lot worse than Robert Gates.
Second, Robert Gates is a complicated man with an interesting history, and understanding that history is key to understanding what it means that he has been selected.
Gates does not come from the operations side of the CIA. He was an analyst. He’s also the only DCI to ever rise to the top job from an entry-level position. Within the CIA he was known to be a critic of the operations side. He was not a cowboy like Richard Helms or William Casey.
Gates worked closely with Scowcroft, Powell, and George H.W. Bush during the collapse of the Soviet Union, and taken collectively, their performances deserve very high marks. He has a record of competence.
It’s interesting that Gates agreed to take over the Pentagon because he recently declined to leave Texas A&M to take over the position of Director of National Intelligence. The Pentagon is, if anything, a much more thankless job at the moment. But Robert Gates is a grown-up, not a hatchet man and not an ideologue. His professional training is in analysis. His record of analysis is good.
If you are interested in reading about his thinking on the CIA’s performance during the Cold War, go read a this speech he gave on the subject. It is predictably rose-colored in its praise of the CIA, but it is also one of the best defenses of the CIA I have ever read.
Robert Gates is being brought in, kind of like a relief pitcher, and will go right to work with Jim Baker-Lee Hamilton-Brent Scowcroft to try to salvage something from the ashes of neo-conservatism’s excellent adventure in Iraq. Do not expect the Democrats to fight his nomination. They will welcome it, as should we.
I know that people will want more than a reversion to Poppy Bush’s policies. But, if you were expecting anything more, you were being unrealistic. This is a major concession on the part of the President. There are now two new powers for Dick Cheney to contend with. He has to contend with Robert Gates and the return of the Carlyle Group branch of the Republican/DemHawk establishment, and he has to contend with Ike Skelton and Carl Levin on Armed Services, Tom Santos and Joe Biden on Foreign Relations, and Alcee Hastings and Jay Rockefeller on Intelligence.
Yesterday’s election was not only a repudiation of the Rovian politics of fear, it was a major blow to the neo-conservatives, and to Dick Cheney.
I do hope that Carl Levin asks tough questions about Robert Gates’ integrity and his past performance. Perhaps there are things that I am not currently aware of that could be disqualifying. But, right now, this is about as good of a Defense Secretary appointment as we could hope for. I am most pleased that Bush didn’t do something stupid and appoint a crony or use the slot for some political purpose.
Thanks for this analysis. It sounds like Gates is about as good of a choice as we can expect, and a massive improvement over Rumsfeld.
Thanks for clarification, BooMan.
On the ‘major concession’: at today’s presser Bush definitely looked like a shaken man (at least initially, until revived somewhat by attention like a lonely child), whose basic reality has received an authoritative adjustment. Longstanding conflicts exposed: the typical addict’s smackdown.
A while ago I heard one of the talking heads describe this as taking the Bush foreign policy into political custody. Howard Feinman described it as putting the Iraq policy into receivership. He carried on the metaphor for a while, describing the policy as bankrupt and referring to the Carlyle Group and the Baker commission as the bankers coming in to salvage the assets of a failed company. I’d say Gates fits into that metaphor perfectly.
And here I was really hoping for someone that would sit down with terrorists, hug them and then sing Kumbaya. Maybe next time.
It sure looks like a Carlisle Coup. Someone who may actually bring some competence and intelligence to the position… ideological differences aside…definitely a major shift in strategy for this administration.
Bush is rearranging deck chairs at Rove’s request.
I wouldn’t start cheering anytime soon. Yep, i’m one of those liberals who doesn’t celebrate the head of our secret police becoming our Secretary of Defense.
Any man who was involved with Ollie North and Iran Contra and then head of our secret police to boot has no place being near a position of power in a country where torture is now tolerated.
Lucky us.
I couldn’t agree with you more! I think it is the same old feces in a different package. It just might get worse. I do not like this man! I repeat that……a spook is a spook..or there are spooks and then there are spooks…he is one of them I definatly do not trust one bit! Besides has poppy started to be prez or what!!??
Yep, i’m one of those liberals who doesn’t celebrate the head of our secret police becoming our Secretary of Defense.
wilfred, that makes two of us.
NPR
CNN
Then throw in Iran Conta…
Same old, same old, repackaged.
Please.
Doesn’t anyone think it is strange that Rummy resigned the next day following the Republican thumpin. To me it looks like he is being scape-goated,in a child-like manner, for W’s short comings. I mean W was stupid enough to follow Rummy for six years..and would repeat that “stay the course line” ; “mission accomplished”.
He should have done it a long time ago, it would have been a nice October surprise…the chimp finally realized he’s chump.
Do not expect the Democrats to fight his nomination. They will welcome it, as should we.
Not quite Booman. I agree the Dems will not fight this. That does not mean we should welcome it.
We should understand what it means. It means that the War for Oil will continue, under different strategy.
Under the new strategy, will the war get less expensive? No. Will it get less bloody? No. Will it get off the front pages? Probably: I am sure that is Gates’ first assignment.
In service of which, we may well see fewer missions of pacification. This technique–of wandering about hostile territory and seeing who shoots at you–is about as dumb today as it was forty years ago when it was called “search and destroy.” It didn’t work then, isn’t working now, and we may soon see less of it, in the interest of decreased American casualties. A side effect: Much of Iraq is going to be simply abandoned–there is no choice.
But the OIL is not going to be abandoned, so that is where the action is going to be. There are two choices: escalate up, or escalate down. Escalate up means moving to higher-tech mass weaponry–essentially, saturation bombing. Inconvenient populations are removed or killed through massive air attack. The method is inherently genocidal, although that will likely not disturb Americans at all. Yet it would be embarrassing, and may not be used, or used sparingly.
Escalating down seems more likely, based on Gates’ background. Here, you flood the country with death squads that you recruit and supply, but the recruits must be mostly local. They are paid–well: with both money and promises of immunity after. Tactics become flexible to the locale–terrorize or depopulate according to circumstances. The idea is to pacify the oil regions only.
Can this work? In the north, the goons already exist, and are very nearly in control–they are the Kurdish militia. The problem is that their aims go far beyond serving America’s oil war, and Turkey is likely to become involved–as an opponent. Keeping the Kurds from going beyond America’s agenda, and keeping Turkey from solving its Kurdish problem by force, would be a real work of diplomacy. The CIA might actually be suited for this.
In the South, the problem is to create a Shi’ite force of benedict arnolds. Much will depend on whether they can avoid beeing seen as American puppets. This is the sort of thing that in the old days–though not recently–the CIA used to excel at.
Deaths will accelerate, even beyond the current toll. But they will be almost entirely Iraqi, and the war will drop out of the news. If this much success is attained, the next step will be to try to bring Europe back in on the American side with promises of a share of the oil. This is crucial. No single thing has weakened America more in its war than the willful alienation of its own allies. Any war strategy that hopes for mid-term success (there is no strategy of long-term success) will have to bring them back.
And where is the Army in all this? The Army is actually already destroyed, and needs to be rebuilt. Possibly it will be built on different lines–less emphasis on main force battles and more on creating and leading puppet armies of counter-insurgency. I don’t know if they have a real theory on how to do this, separate from the old fantasies from Vietnam, but the CIA has always had practical experience in civic disruption and perhaps Gates will be bringing this over to Defense.
In a deep sense, this would not be good at all.
While it exists, America will remain the greatest threat to peace in the world. The reason for this is simple, obvious, and blatant. The reason is oil.
It is not going to change.