Options for the New Secretary of Defense

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No one knows whether, with all the military trainers in the world, the Iraqis will ever be ready to take on the militias. But the plan has political advantages. It relieves some of the pressure for withdrawals but boosts the overall footprint temporarily. Abizaid told lawmakers he is considering the "repositioning of forces in different ways," something Bush has hinted at as well. "It's a face-saver," says a foreign policy expert who has been involved in the Baker commission from the start. "It says, Let's go in hard, and if we can't solve Baghdad, we're going in the other direction."

Dig in. Although the military and political establishments are desperate for a new approach in Iraq, it's also possible that little will change. If the Baker commission falters or political stalemate ensues after the group reports, the U.S. may well keep troop levels the same, continue training Iraqis--and hope for the best. Sticking it out is the preferred course not just of the Commander in Chief but also of many of the top generals who report to him. To them, Iraq remains a fight that can be won--as long as political support for the enterprise doesn't bottom out completely. "I believe in the mission," says Lieut. General Peter Chiarelli, commander of the coalition forces, who ends his second tour of duty in Iraq this month. "It is what it is, and it's not going to lend itself to a timetable."

It is difficult to say where Gates will come down among these options. His years working for Bush's father can be read two ways. Gates often took the hardest line in internal debates about how to manage the end of the cold war, pushing for radical change when the President; his top adviser, Brent Scowcroft; and Baker, then Secretary of State, favored more moderate steps. As the U.S.S.R. teetered on the brink of collapse, Gates (along with Cheney) usually argued for the fastest route to bring it about. They almost always lost out to Baker and Scowcroft, who argued that the Gates-Cheney approach was bad policy and worse politics. Gates can be bold, but bold isn't always wise.

That instinct helps explain why Gates thinks of himself as a transformational leader. After the CIA missed the fall of the Soviet Union, Gates launched reforms of 14 parts of the agency's operations, from analysis to satellite imagery to language study. Although not all these reforms bore fruit, CIA spending on Soviet collection and analysis shrank from 60% of its budget to less than 15%. Gates tried the same thing at Texas A&M, a school with an almost stubborn resistance to change--ending admissions preference for children of alumni, hiring hundreds of new faculty members and firing veteran football coach R.C. Slocum.

Still, compared with what waits for Gates, those challenges were small. He will probably follow Baker's lead in emphasizing regional diplomacy and will support any commission proposal to open direct talks with Damascus and Tehran. But that will immediately put him at odds with Cheney. One who has worked at Gates' side says the old analyst in Gates will overrule the old ideologue. "He knows that you cannot solve this problem within the four corners of the country," said this former hand. "It's going to take a regional approach. I don't think he's going to look for the most graceful way to exit. That won't be his approach."