I don’t know a great deal about Bob Gates beyond the readily available public information. The truth is that if I did know a lot about him I doubt I’d publicize it. Yes, as several commenters have mentioned, he was part of the Iran-Contra conspiracy. Yes, as part of that conspiracy, he is directly responsible for violating US law by selling weapons to Iran at a time when such weapons were embargoed by US law. Yes, he’s a Cold War warrior and hence should be watched carefully.

But that’s old news. More recently he’s been in James Baker’s Iraq Study Group. He wasn’t involved with Dick “Dick” Cheney’s Iraq Study Group. That’s not to say he isn’t/wasn’t a hard liner on Iraq, Iran, and other foreign wars of aggression. Maybe he really agrees with Mr Cheney that all that oil belongs to us because it’s our manifest destiny.

Here’s the thing: the Iraq Study Group – Baker’s group – can we call it ISG2? – is tasked to find a way out of this mess without hurting the US strategic and foreign policy interests. That’s a tall order. It may be an impossible task, but that’s most likely the Group’s charter. We call it “James Baker’s Iraq Study Group” but he’s just a co-chair, with Lee Hamiltion, a lifelong Democrat. With co-chairs, one always has a bit more power and reach than the other. Hamilton had the same situation when he served on the 9/11 Commission and he worked hard to moderate Tom Kean, a lifelong Republican, and undoubtedly got some of the progressive ideas into the final report. Have you ever seen the names of the other members of the ISG2?

There’s couple of troglodytic paleoconservatives on there, but the majority of the membership is fairly center, or perhaps marginally right of center. With these members, that Study Group won’t just be looking for a way to pull Mr Bu$h’s chestnuts out of the fire.

I don’t think Mr Gates has a lot of chops in the Middle East. According to his wiki bio, after graduating from college, and getting his Masters at Indiana where he was recruited by the CIA, he spent two years in the Air Force, then there’s a great big blank in his public record until a 1974 PhD. He wasn’t in a closet. The blanks will get filled in, but he’s basically a lifer in the Intelligence community, with a few nice awards.

Mr Baker’s the one the Saudis trust. And no matter what others may think about the Saudis, they want peace because it’s good for business, and because they’re just not in a position to defend their country from a strong military threat. Mr Baker is a life-long adviser to the Bu$h family. His loyalty is to himself and the Bu$h family business interests, rather than to George W Bu$h, the Man Who Would Be King.

Gates will undoubtedly change the tenor of the Rumsfeld Defense Department. Why else replace Rumsfeld? A new head always has to mark his territory and usually arrives with a full bladder. It’s quite possible Messers Baker, Bu$h pere, and Gates have an idea where they want to end up, and no one should be too surprised if there are some personnel changes in Undersecretaries, Assistant Undersecretaries, and a few Generals and maybe Admirals.