War with Iran unlikely if Gates has any say

Shades of détente
Analysts say Gates’ position is one that was finely honed during the Cold War, which he sees as the model for dealing with Iran. 

“Just as the United States maintains a constructive relationship with China (and earlier did so with the Soviet Union) while strongly opposing certain aspects of its internal and international policies,” the two Cold Warriors noted, “Washington should approach Iran with a readiness to explore areas of common interests, while continuing to contest objectionable policies.”

And while that was 2004, Gates more recently gave strong support for negotiations with Iran and Syria while a member of the Iraq Study Group. Gates left the group before its final report to take the Pentagon job, but during his confirmation hearings he reiterated his fundamental support for the talks. 

Gates is also on the record as being opposed to those in the White House and elsewhere in Washington who think the Iranian issue can best be resolved by working with Iranian dissidents to overthrow the current regime.

“Despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction, Iran is not on the verge of another revolution,” he and Brzezinski wrote. “Those forces that are committed to preserving Iran’s current system remain firmly in control and currently represent the country’s only authoritative interlocutors.

“Direct U.S. efforts to overthrow the Iranian regime are therefore not likely to succeed; nor would regime change through external intervention necessarily resolve the most critical concerns with respect to Iran’s policies.”

Bottom line for Gates and Brzezinski: Iran “could play a potentially significant role in promoting a stable, pluralistic government in Baghdad. It might be induced to be a constructive actor toward both Iraq and Afghanistan, but it retains the capacity to create significant difficulties for these regimes if it is alienated from the new post-conflict governments in those two countries.”

Reading tea leaves
NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin also pointed to Gates’ appointment of Admiral William Fallon as the head of Central Command as evidence that the new secretary of defense is not going to be calling for extreme measures. Appointment of a Navy admiral, the first for Centcom, indicated to some a readiness to go to war with Iran. Fallon himself has disputed such a characterization.

Arkin said the reverse is true. 

“Fallon is a détente-ist,” Arkin says. “Like Gates, he believes more in diplomacy. That is the story here, not his being a Navy admiral.”

Of course, Arkin noted sometimes your adversary does stupid things and you have to react, and there is no guarantee that Gates can play hardball with some of the hard-liners at the White House who want confrontation. But so far, the bottom line is different from past Pentagon thinking.

“It seems to me that Gates has declared that he believes in negotiations and believes in diplomacy so therefore he defers to the State Department," Arkin said. That is not what we would have had if Rumsfeld was still in charge.”

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