The Afghan war looks as if it will outlast the Obama presidency, and if it does the largest single reason will be Obama's choice of Robert Gates as secretary of defence. Gates worked under William Casey, the director of the CIA at the time of the Iran-Contra scandal. His nomination by Ronald Reagan to head the CIA was thwarted by suspicions of his complicity in covert operations in Nicaragua. The elder Bush later renominated him and got him through. Gates would have struck George H.W. Bush as a sound appointment because he knew the secrets and could be trusted to keep them. When the younger Bush, after the 2006 election, brought in Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld at defence, he would have had in mind that history of loyalty to the Bush family. With Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantánamo to think of, Gates was a man to trust. Also, Gates might help to slow and muffle the incessant pressure from Cheney and his circle for an attack on Iran. It is generally supposed that Gates, together with Condoleezza Rice, held Cheney off and gave Bush the institutional backing to resist him.

LRB 18 November 2010 | PDF Download