Matthew Yglesias » Gates and the Pragmatists

Nov 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Gates and the Pragmatists

As Josh Marshall indicates, you need to understand talk of keeping Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary in the broader context of an effort to coopt the pragmatic realist wing of the GOP (for which “Scowcroft” is a good shorthand) and bring it into Obama’s coalition. I wrote my post-election column about this last week.

But here’s the nickle version. What you don’t want to do is “move to the center” on national security issues with Gates on board as a bipartisan token of said centrism. What you want to do is redefine the center away from the neocon / liberal hawk center that dominated public debate in 2002-2005 in favor of a new progressive / realist center that’s prepared to undertake bold regional diplomacy aimed not only at extricating ourselves from Iraq, but also achieving diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran and Syria and making progress on Israel/Palestine issues. There’s some reason — Gates’ 2004 CFR Task Force Report on Iran, the Jim Baker’s call for a “diplomatic surge” in the Baker/Hamilton report, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Obama, pointed non-endorsements of McCain by Brent Scowcroft and Chuck Hagel, Nick Burns’ Time article on the need to talk with dictators — to believing that forging such a synthesis in a bipartisan way is possible.

But at the same time that I think there’s promise in this approach, on some level it’s just hard for me to assess. Obviously, before appointing anyone to anything you’d want to talk to them and see what they think. But of course Gates isn’t going to take my calls. Perhaps he has terribly wrongheaded views on all sorts of key subjects. But perhaps not. This is the kind of thing the Obama transition team needs to assess and unfortunately there’s not much light that those of us on the outside can really shed on the whole thing.

Comments
38

Filed under: Gates, Pentagon, Transition

38 Responses to “Gates and the Pragmatists”

Freddie Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Good old the Jim Baker.
Steve Sailer Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Obama needs to appoint a Democrat as Secretary of Defense. Appointing a Bush holdover, even one as sensible and solid as Gates, just sends the message that Democrats can’t be trusted on defense.
Evil Twin Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
I am falling over dead – or someone has hijacked the name of the second poster. He is right that there is no reason to put a Republican in as Secretary of Defense. If for no other reason that the have been monstrously and disastrously wrong about fucking everything. Not only are the Democrats not weak on national defense, the evidence is in, Republicans are weak on national defense. Republicans are so weak on national defense issues that they don’t even know what it is.
Don Williams Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
JESUS CHRIST on a fucking crutch. Ronald Reagan spent this country into a deep hole by lying to Congress about the SOviet Threat — and Robert Gates falsified CIA Reports to help him do it.

LOOK at the testimony of CIA analysts at Gates’ confirmation for Director of CIA.

Gates will ALWAYS betray you. It’s in his nature.

I had 4 SCI clearances in the 1990s, I KNOW of a major scam that DOD and Intel was running on Congress and I’ve always wondered whether Bill Clinton and his circle even had a fucking clue.

On a unrelated matter, If you want to know why the Intel budget almost doubled in a few years, LOOK at the ONE major government computer center that went down on Y2K and the implications for Al Gore’s Presidential campaign.

That crash was NO accident.
Don Williams Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Try this test on Gates: Ask him what he thinks about modifying the 1998 Intelligence Community Whistleblower’s Protection Act to allow intel employees to report fraud to the Congressional Oversight Committees without having to FIRST report their complaint to officials of the Executive Branch — and thereby dooming their families livelihood.

Ask him how Congress can oversee the massive DOD and Intel Community if Congress is NOT allowed to hear complaints from their constituents without the Executive Branch’s permission.
Wahoo Matt Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
If you really want to co-opt the realists why not just appoint Scowcroft himself to a major position? Not necessarily Secretary of Defense, but at least some major role. Plus, he has been interviewed by Borat, so the those kids sitting in their parents basements writin those doggone bloggers on the internets will love him.
Peter K. Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
On a unrelated matter, If you want to know why the Intel budget almost doubled in a few years, LOOK at the ONE major government computer center that went down on Y2K and the implications for Al Gore’s Presidential campaign.

That crash was NO accident.

Certainly, there are questions.

Don, the CIA are considered the good guys now, since they tried to subvert the Neocon scheme to steal Iraq’s oil. (Althought it was Tenet who made the “slam dunk” comment.)

In related news:

Iraq Signs $3.5 Billion Deal for China to Develop Oil Field

By KATHERINE ZOEPF
Published: November 11, 2008

BAGHDAD — North Oil, an Iraqi-owned company, has signed a contract with a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, CNPC, that was first negotiated during Saddam Hussein’s government, an official in Iraq’s Oil Ministry said Tuesday.

The deal is worth $3.5 billion, said the official, Ahmed al-Shamaa, the deputy oil minister. It is the first major oil-development deal that Iraq has made with a foreign company since the American-led invasion in 2003. It will allow CNPC, with Norinco, another Chinese company, to develop the Adhab oil field in Wasit Province, southeast of Baghdad, for 20 years, Mr. Shamaa said in a telephone interview. “It has been the same contract since Saddam’s regime, but we changed it from a production-sharing contract to a service contract,” Mr. Shamaa said. “The contract includes developing the field, digging wells, laying down bibs, delivering crude oil to the national grid, and natural gas processing and delivery.”

Iraq’s oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, and the CNPC president, Jiang Jiemin, attended the signing ceremony.

Frank A. Verrastro, director of the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he thought the announcement of the Chinese deal would open the door to the announcement of some of the other oil deals that Iraq has been negotiating recently.

The announcement of a Chinese deal first, rather than a deal with a major Western petroleum company like Shell or Chevron, would send a positive signal, Mr. Verrastro said.

“Iraq is going to deal with China, as well as the U.S., as well as the U.K.,” he said. “It shows that Iraq is going to reach beyond a select group of companies.”

“This shows the progress Iraq has made administratively, especially in the wake of what’s going on with energy prices lately,” he added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/middleeast/12crude.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=China&st=cse&oref=slogin

Damn those devious Neocons! Or will this be spun as demonstrating their incompetence, like providing Iran with favorable regime next door?
Michael Smith Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I am falling over dead – or someone has hijacked the name of the second poster.

I think he’s mocking the stupid argument that the kos types keep making. Who the hell cares if SoDs are republican or democrat? People vote for president, not SoD. If Gates is successful, that is to Obama’s benefit, not the Repulican party’s. Obama won this election on the promise of competence, not on the promise of rehabilitating the image of those Democrats in the defense community.
right Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
pointed non-endorsements of McCain by Brent Scowcroft and Chuck Hagel

…and Dick Lugar.
Horatio Parker Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Baloney.

Get rid of Gates. Moderate Repubs won’t be offended and it won’t score any points with the wingnuts.
chad Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
If only we had SOME connection to the Obama transition team…
MAX HATS Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Moderate Repubs won’t be offended and it won’t score any points with the wingnuts.

Counterpoint: moderate republicans will be offended and wingnuts don’t matter.
Ed Smithe Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Matthew,

These are your guys. Good luck to you!
Don Williams Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Re Peter K’s comment “Don, the CIA are considered the good guys now”
————
Who the fuck is talking about CIA — those guys are the poor boys of the Intel Community.

Especially since the Director of National Intelligence was taken out and put in NIA.
The only thing they have left is the Clandestine Service –and Rumsfeld was trying to coopt that as well, since he felt CIA was too timid. Yeah, they have Analysis — but State Department and DOE made CIA look like morons and no one’s forgetting that.

Department of Defense indirectly controls a shitload of the Intel Budget — although NIA is supposed to oversee that.

Yeah, right. Intel has a lot of military officers and those guys know where their fucking bread is buttered. DOD will always try to coopt Intel because you can’t sustain a $700 Billion per year budget if you let some assholes tell Congress what’s really going on.

The US government was spending 7.5 Percent of GDP on defense win the 1980s based on Gates’ reports — and Gates was just a fucking mid-level bureaucrat at the time.
SLC Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I recall reading a few days ago that Gates is not even a registered Rethuglican.
Kolohe Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Counterpoint: moderate republicans will be offended and wingnuts don’t matter.

Counter-counter point: The moderate Republicans won’t be offended and the wingnuts don’t matter.
phil Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Nickles are birds.

Nickels are coins.

Please, Matt. Please.
Lamenter Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Steve Sailer Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Obama needs to appoint a Democrat as Secretary of Defense. Appointing a Bush holdover, even one as sensible and solid as Gates, just sends the message that Democrats can’t be trusted on defense.

Also, negroes are inferior. Oh wait, we’re talking about defense policy, sorry…
Chris Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Well, as long as Obama and Democrats recognize a difference between coopting non-insane Republicans into a *coalition* and coopting non-insane Republicans into the Democratic *party*, we’ll be okay.

On the other hand, any Senate Democratic caucus that can’t even figure out that Joe Lieberman is neither a Democrat nor a non-insane Republican (note: yeah, I know he self-identifies as CFL or ID or I-CFL-D but I don’t give a fuck; he’s a Republican for political purposes, and not a sane one on anything of partisan identity or importance) probably won’t have to deal with the distinction I described in the first paragraph, because they won’t even realize it exists.

Also, for Evan Bayh to echo Lieberman’s definition of “strong on national security” as meaning “doing what Republicans tell us to do” is borderline political treason, and should be dissuaded in strong terms.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 4:42 am
Current thinking about whether Obama will retain Gates:

Obama Pressured to Back Off Iraq Withdrawal
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=13760

The promotion of Robert M. Gates as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of defense appears to be the key element in a broad campaign by military officials and their supporters in the political elite and the news media to pressure Obama into dropping his plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq in as little as 16 months.

Despite subtle and unsubtle pressures to compromise on his withdrawal plan, however, Obama is likely to pass over Gates and stand firm on his campaign pledge on military withdrawal from Iraq, according to a well-informed source close to the Obama camp.

Within 24 hours of Obama’s election, the idea of Gates staying on as defense secretary in an Obama administration was floated in the New York Times, which reported that “a case is being made publicly by columnists and commentators, and quietly by leading Congressional voices of Mr. Obama’s own party – that Mr. Gates should be asked to remain as defense secretary, at least for an interim period in the opening months of the new presidency.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that two unnamed Obama advisers had said Obama was “leaning toward” asking Gates stay on, although the report added that other candidates were also in the running. The Journal said Gates was strongly opposed to any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, and it speculated that a Gates appointment “could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most
troops from Iraq by mid-2010.”

Some Obama advisers have been maneuvering for a Gates nomination for months. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig publicly raised the idea of a Gates reprise in June and again in early October. Danzig told reporters Oct. 1, however, that he had not discussed the possibility with Obama.

Obama advisers who support his Iraq withdrawal plan, however, have opposed a Gates appointment. Having a defense secretary who is not fully supportive of the 16-month timetable would make it very difficult, if not impossible for Obama to enforce it on the military.

A source close to the Obama transition team told IPS Tuesday that the chances that Gates would be nominated by Obama “are now about 10 percent.”

The source said that Obama is going to stick with his 16-month
withdrawal timeline, despite the pressures now being brought to bear on him. “There is no doubt about it,” said the source, who refused to elaborate because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Opposition to Obama’s pledge to withdraw combat troops from Iraq on a 16-month timetable is wide and deep in the US national security establishment and its political allies. US military leaders have been unequivocal in rejecting any such rapid withdrawal from Iraq, and news media coverage of the issue has been based on the premise that Obama will have to modify his plan to make it acceptable to the military.

The Washington Post published a story Monday saying that Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, opposes Obama’s timeline for withdrawal as “dangerous,” insisting that “reductions must depend on conditions on the ground.” Along with Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the head of CENTCOM and responsible for the entire Middle East, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the new commander in Iraq, Mullen was portrayed as part of a
phalanx of determined military opposition to Obama’s timeline.

Post reporters Alec MacGillis and Ann Scott Tyson cited “defense experts” as predicting a “smooth and productive” relationship between Obama and these military leaders “if Obama takes the pragmatic approach that his advisers are indicating, allowing each side to adjust at the margins.” But if Obama “presses for the withdrawal of two brigades per month,” the same analysts predicted, “conflict is inevitable.”

The story quoted a former Bush administration National Security Council official, Peter D. Feaver, who was a strategic planner on the administration’s Iraq “surge” policy, as warning that Obama’s timetable would precipitate “a civil-military crisis” if Obama does not agree to the demands of Mullen, Petraeus and Odierno for greater flexibility.

Underlying the campaign of pressure is the assumption that Obama’s 16-month timetable is mainly posturing for political purposes during the primary campaign, and that Obama is not necessarily committed to the withdrawal plan.

Feaver, who has returned to Duke University, said in an interview with IPS that he did not believe such a crisis was likely, because, “It is unlikely Obama will come in and do what he said he would do during the campaign.” Obama has given himself “enough wiggle room to change the plan,” Feaver said.

Similarly CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre also reported Nov. 7 that Obama “gave himself some wiggle room” to respond to military demands for more flexibility. McIntyre said he had “pledged to consult US commanders and adjust as necessary.”

Obama’s website makes no such pledge to “adjust” the timetable. Instead it says the “removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government.” It defends the rate of withdrawal of one or two brigades per month and offers to leave a “residual force” in Iraq to “train and support the Iraqi forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.”

When Obama met with Petraeus in Baghdad in July, Petraeus presented a detailed case for a “conditions-based” withdrawal rather than Obama’s timetable and ended with a plea for “maximum flexibility” on a withdrawal schedule, according to Joe Klein’s account in Time Oct. 22.

But Obama refused to back down, according to Klein’s account. He told Petraeus, “Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential commander in chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security.” Obama defended his policy of a fixed date for withdrawal in light of the situation in Afghanistan, the costs of continued US
occupation and the stress on US military forces.

Opponents of Obama’s plan outside the Bush administration appear to be unaware of the fact that the Bush administration has already given up the “conditions-based withdrawal” that the US military has called for in agreeing to Iraqi demands for complete US withdrawal by the end of 2011.

Feaver, the former strategic planner for National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, said he assumes that, “if the US agreed to it, it preserves the flexibility that Petraeus and Odierno say they’ve needed all along.”

But even the small loophole left in previous versions of the text, allowing the 2011 deadline to be extended if the pact were revised with the agreement of the Iraqi parliament, has now been closed in the “final” version which the Bush administration submitted to the Maliki government last week, according to a Nov. 10 report by Associated Press, which had obtained a copy of the text.
bob h Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 8:19 am
What I find unbelievable about all this is that Gates would consent to stay. I had understood that it was difficult to pry him away from his University Presidency in the first place and that he was counting the days until he could go back to Texas.
Steve S Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 8:35 am
Not take your calls? You’re the ninth most powerful person in the country!
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Matt Yglesias

Gates and the Pragmatists

38 Responses to “Gates and the Pragmatists”

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