We got to get it together, and see what’s happening

To second Daniel (writing at his great blog, Pensons), insofar that Robert Gates is a conservative (and there is nothing to suggest that he isn’t), he is almost certainly a Scowcroftian conservative realist.  But I’m not terribly interested in speculating about Robert Gates’ ideological commitments, no, the much more interesting question is this: why exactly is Obama eschewing liberal foreign policy figures in favor of hawks and realists, especially considering that during the primaries, Obama was offering a genuinely liberal (although still quite mainstream) take on foreign policy. 

Although I dismissed this when Ross Douthat suggested it, recent statements by Gates – where he expressed his commitment to working within a 16-month timetable for withdrawal –  have made me cautiously optimistic that Douthat is right: Obama intends to give realists and hawks partial ownership over our eventual withdrawal from Iraq, as well as any other major foreign policy turns.  As publius details, this has several important implications:

Let’s assume, for instance, that Obama is in fact “throwing long.” That is, he wants big change – e.g., new multilateral diplomacy; negotiations with Syria and Iran; and even cuts to the grotesquely-large and corrupting military budget. If these are truly his goals, then voices like Clinton and Gates and Jones will be powerful advocates indeed. It’s not merely that they’ll provide political cover across the national political spectrum. They’ll also provide political cover to nervous Democrats who remain afraid of their own shadow on these issues. Winning over the latter is a precondition of winning over the former. (For instance, you can’t have talks with Iran if half the Senate Dems are on TV saying it’s a bad idea)

Now this might be unwarranted optimism on my part, but I think that publius’ scenario is considerably more likely than the other possibility: Obama is himself a hawk, and his rhetoric during the campaign was just that, rhetoric.  There is every indication – his informal advisors, his formal advisors, his own writings on the subject – that Obama is a foreign policy progressive/liberal, and intends to pursue a progressive foriegn policy.  And is using Gates, Clinton and Jones – each of whom is a respected, mainstream voice on foreign policy – to pursue those ends*.

*It is actually a little reminiscent of Bush, who used the credibility of perceived moderates to push through conservative policies.