The new Defense Secretary's influence seems to be drifting across the Potonac to Foggy Bottom.
Robert M. Gates won praise for public candor when asked at his Senate confirmation hearing whether the United States was winning the war in Iraq. "No, sir," he replied. But his real impact as Defense Secretary may come in persuading President Bush that stability in Iraq requires policy changes outside the military realm that is his statutory bailiwick.
Gates' fingerprints already appear on the Bush administration's abrupt shift in how it deals with two of Iraq's neighbors, Iran and Syria. For several years, the White House had blocked any meaningful dialogue with either nation, demanding from each a major change in behavior as a prerequisite for talks. Iran would have to suspend its nuclear enrichment activities. Syria would have to stop its destabilizing activities in Lebanon and halt support to Palestinian terrorists. Then on 27 February, the administration agreed to join Iraq's neighbors-including Iran and Syria, and with no preconditions-for meetings in Baghdad aimed at arresting Iraq's descent into sectarian carnage. The first session was held 10 March.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced the new approach. It was billed as U.S. support for an Iraqi initiative rather than a conference organized by the United States. Gates has not claimed authorship, but he broached the same idea nearly three months earlier in answers to prepared questions from the Armed Services panel. In his written responses, Gates stated there was no purely military solution to the problems in Iraq. He was asked if he favored "direct dialogue" with Iran on securing Iraq.
"In general I believe no option that could potentially benefit U.S. policy should be off the table," he replied. "Even in the worst days of the Cold War the U.S. maintained a dialogue with the Soviet Union and China and I believe those channels of communication helped us manage many potentially difficult situations. Engagement with Iran might well come as part of an international conference."
On Syria, Gates wrote: "Our engagement with Syria need not be unilateral. It could, for instance, take the form of Syrian participation in a regional conference."
It's very unusual for a Cabinet nominee to depart from stated administration policy on an important strategic issue. Yet Gates' view diverged sharply from what President Bush and Rice were saying publicly at the time. After the Iraq Study Group, headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Representative Lee H. Hamilton, urged the President in December to start talking with Iran and Syria, Bush still imposed conditions on dialogue. Gates had been a member of the Study Group until Bush approached him about joining the Cabinet.
"Countries that participate in talks must not fund terrorism, must help the young democracy survive, must help with the economics of the country," Bush said. "If people are not committed, if Syria and Iran is not committed to that concept, then they shouldn't bother to show up."
Rice championed a "realignment" in the Middle East. This policy called for continued isolation of Iran, Syria, and their militant allies-Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas-led government in the Palestinian territories-while working with and encouraging moderate Arab and Muslim governments.
Like Gates, Rice used to be a Soviet-watcher, but she disputed the contention that just as Washington always kept channels of communication open with Moscow, the administration should now talk to Iran. "Well, the fact is that we talked to the Soviet Union mostly about how not to annihilate each other. I don't actually remember having a conversation with the Soviet Union about them helping us to secure Western Europe," she said on PBS' Newshour.
Hardliners depart
The new Defense Secretary's entry into the ranks of Bush's top advisers follows the administration's loss of several forceful policymakers pegged as neo-conservatives or hardliners. Besides Gates' predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, the list includes Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Douglas Feith, formerly number three at the Pentagon, and John Bolton, former U.S. envoy to the United Nations. The result has tipped the balance among Bush's advisers toward a less-ideological foreign policy, closer to that of the first President Bush, for whom Gates worked as deputy national security adviser and CIA director.
Recognizing that he needs more help from NATO allies, particularly in Afghanistan, Gates has worked to improve relations damaged during Rumsfeld's era-sometimes with wry humor. At a February security conference in Munich, he noted Rumsfeld's disparaging "Old Europe" remark about France and Germany when the two European heavyweights opposed the Iraq war. Without mentioning the former secretary by name, Gates said: "The 'free world' versus 'those behind the Iron Curtain;' 'North' versus South;' 'East' versus 'West;' I am even told that some have even spoken in terms of Old' Europe versus 'new.' All of these characterizations belong to the past. The distinction I would draw is a very practical one-a 'realist's' view: It is between Alliance members who do all they can to fulfill collective commitments, and those who do not."
Like Rumsfeld, though perhaps more discreetly, Gates is expected to take a fairly expansive view of the national security decisions that he tries to influence, regardless of turf. Asked by the Senate what more could be done to stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, for instance, he said the State Department had properly taken the lead. Then he added, "I plan to review the situation and make recommendations to my colleagues, other national security agencies in the government, and the President."
Although he backed Bush's decision to invade Iraq (unlike his former boss, Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the President's father), Gates expressed caution about preemptive military attacks, saying they should be based on "very strong evidence." The former CIA chief hinted that intelligence may not give enough proof; it "can be a moving target and is often ambiguous."
The catalyst for Bush's mild about-face toward Iran and Syria appears to be the danger crystallized in Gates' "No, sir" response at his confirmation hearing. Bush has less than two years to avoid defeat in Iraq at the hands of al Qaeda-style Sunni terrorists and Shi'a militiamen and their arsenals of suicide bombs, roadside explosives, and torture chambers.
Risk of conflagration
Failure in Iraq could indeed bring a realignment in the Middle East, but of a different sort from that envisioned by Rice. As Gates told the Armed Services Committee, "Developments in Iraq over the next year or two will, I believe, shape the entire Middle East and greatly influence global geo-politics for many years to come." If the U.S. fails there, it will "face the very real risk and possible reality of a regional conflagration," Gates said. Trained intelligence analysts like Gates don't use such words casually; when they do, it concentrates the mind.
Still, on taking office, Gates wasn't ready to plunge headlong into talks with Iran. "Frankly, right at this moment there's really nothing the Iranians want from us, and so in any negotiation right now we would be the supplicant," he told reporters on 17 January.
Over the next month, the United States worked to increase its leverage. The presence of a second aircraft carrier group in the Persian Gulf, the arrest of Iranian operatives in Iraq, an increasing likelihood of tightened United Nations sanctions, and a financial and banking squeeze led by the U.S. Treasury may help turn the tables. But anyone who imagines Gates wants another fight on his hands wasn't listening when West Virginia's Democratic Senator Robert Byrd quizzed him about war with Iran or Syria.
"Would you say that an attack on either Iran or Syria would worsen the violence in Iraq and lead to greater American casualties?" Byrd asked Gates.
"Yes, sir. I think that's very likely," Gates replied.
Mr. Matthews is a former diplomatic and Middle East correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. His book, The Lost Years: Bush, Sharon and Failure in the Middle East, will be published in September by Nation Books.