The Gates Keeper

Late this summer, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates traveled to the Middle East, to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. At each stop, high-ranking Arab officials anxiously asked him: was the United States preparing to attack Iran? Gates reassured them all that the United States had no plans to do so, at least any time soon. He wasn't dramatic about it, says a Defense Department official who accompanied Gates on the trip but declined to be identified discussing secret talks. "He didn't grab anyone's arm and say, 'I've got Cheney under control, wink, wink'," says this official. But Gates was low-key, straightforward, steadying—calming, even soothing in a dry and matter-of-fact way. A little later, at the end of September, Gates met with the Democratic Senate Policy Committee (something his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, would never do). One of the senators nervously asked if the Bush administration was looking for a reason to bomb Tehran. "It would be a strategic calamity to attack Iran at this time," Gates replied. Sen. Evan Bayh, who was at the meeting, told NEWSWEEK: "You could almost feel the relief around the table. It was, 'Well, I guess he's not here just to repeat the party line.' It was just such a breath of fresh air from Rumsfeld and the 'my way or the highway' attitude of others."

It has been a tough few years for the old Washington foreign-policy establishment, the sort of moderate, non-ideological types who were reared to believe that partisanship stops at the water's edge. Robert Gates gives them hope that the pendulum is swinging back, that it is possible to forge a foreign policy by consensus and common sense and not wishful thinking or righteous zeal. With characteristic self-effacement (thinly concealing a healthy ego), Gates has described himself as "a sort of global Forrest Gump," a kind of Zelig of cold-war Washington who has served seven presidents (mostly at the CIA) and worked with world figures from Margaret Thatcher to Anwar Sadat to Mikhail Gorbachev. In his 1996 memoirs, Gates noted that he served for nine years at the White House—longer than any president except Franklin Roosevelt. Indeed, one of his aides notes that Gates uses his experience as a "weapon." When he is in the office of another cabinet secretary or foreign minister, he might blandly point out that when he met with their predecessors, the furniture was arranged differently—just to let them know "he has been around the track a few times," says the aide.

Right now, Gates is seen as the best insurance that the Bush administration (read: Vice President Cheney) will not leave a legacy of ashes in Iran. According to many former and current government officials who have conferred with Gates publicly and privately, he takes the conventionally accepted view that Iran should not be allowed to build nuclear weapons. He pointedly refuses to rule out military force while calling for more-effective economic sanctions. But the secretary of Defense has also told associates that bombing Iran would create chaos in the oil region, unleash terrorism on Europe and possibly the United States, and serve to strengthen, not weaken, the fragile and fractious Iranian regime—while only postponing for a year or two its nuclear ambitions.

To avoid that scenario, Gates has used his considerable bureaucratic skills to lower the temperature on Iran. He has cautioned military commanders in the Gulf to guard against the risk of accidents that might give a provocation for war—the capture of a pilot, say, or a collision at sea. In recent weeks U.S. commanders in Baghdad have intentionally sought to praise Tehran for being more cooperative in Iraq. According to two separate sources who declined to be identified discussing military plans, Gates has also pared down strike options against Iran, cutting the targets to its nuclear facilities alone. It is a mistake to make too much of this—the military is constantly being asked to devise new options for civilian authorities. But Gates has also allowed the top brass to make public their qualms about attacking Iran, which makes it that much harder for the White House to steamroll them. This is classic Gates: no noisy confrontations with the likes of Cheney, just low-key, pragmatic steps to avoid sparking a conflagration.

It's doubtful that President Bush has made a formal decision on whether to attack Iran, says John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a hard-liner. Still, "the shift is very much away from the use of military force," says Bolton. "If you had asked me a year ago whether the president would use force before he left office if Iran's nuclear program had not been ended some other way, I would have said yes," Bolton told NEWSWEEK. "Now … increasingly my view is that he will not use force." "This shift," he says, "is being driven by both Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice and Secretary Gates." Bolton noted how top military officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen, have indicated they wish to avoid war with Iran. "I think that a lot of comments by the military are actually reflections of what Secretary Gates thinks, and the military are simply making sure they're in line with their boss," says Bolton.

Rice, of course, is closer to the president and has far more direct access to his thoughts and decision-making. She has often traveled to Camp David and worked out with the president in the gym. Gates and his wife, Becky, do not socialize with the First Couple. On the surface, Gates (sometimes called "the anti-Rumsfeld") is principally different from his predecessor in that he doesn't try to dominate and end-run Rice, who, as national-security adviser in Bush's first term, was outmaneuvered and sometimes bullied by the then secretary of Defense. Gates and Rice are friendly and collegial. But Gates exerts a subtle influence on Rice. "He was her boss," former career diplomat James Dobbins points out. In the Bush 41 White House, Rice worked for Gates, who was then deputy national-security adviser. More to the point, she and the president know that it would be impossible, or nearly so, to attack Iran without the support of Gates, for the simple reason that he stands in the chain of command to the military forces that would be used to do the fighting.