Obama Leans Toward Asking Gates To Stay in Place for 1 Year
President-elect Barack Obama is considering asking current United States Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to stay on for at least another year, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Two Obama advisers told the WSJ that Obama believes it would be best if Gates stays on due to the wars in Afghanistan and especially Iraq. A senior Pentagon official added that Gates would most likely accept the offer if proposed.
Obama is not the only one seemingly contemplating asking Gates to stay on for a while. Senator Harry Reid, the Democrats’ majority leader in the Senate, said recently that he believes Gates could stay on, and that Gates would be welcome in a Democratic administration because “he’s never been a registered Republican,” which indicates that if he was Reid may have thought differently.
Meanwhile, Gates himself may agree to the responsibility, but whether he will is far from clear. According to those in the know, the secretary of defense carries a keychain with him whose display shows the number of days until the end of the Bush administration.
Needless to say, the above indicates that Gates may not be looking forward to more years as secretary of defense.
Nonetheless, keeping Gates on would be a wise decision for Obama. Gates has proved to be an excellent secretary of defense, much better than his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld. He has overseen a successful surge in Iraq, and seems to have great contact with leaders of the United States military.
One thing: if Gates stays on, it would indicate that Obama may rescind on his promise to withdraw troops from Iraq in 2010. Gates is adamantly opposed to such a clear timetable. He additionally believes that more U.S. troops should be sent to Afghanistan, in order to crush the Taliban. If Obama keeps Gates on, it could very well be a sign that Obama’s view on Iraq has changed and that he will deal more practical with the Middle East and especially Iraq than he said he would during the campaign.
A good sign for moderates and conservatives, a bad sign for liberal doves who want the U.S. to withdraw sooner rather than later.
Gates might be a good pick. In the long run, I think it is President Obama’s best interest to really be a uniter, rather than a divider, though that is not what his most faithful supporters on the left want to hear. But the reality is that he has a very slender mandate, much as most presidents have. He will need to govern from the center. One way to do that is to have several Republicans in the cabinet. Gates for now is a good start.