Yesterday saw Thomas PM "The Pentagon's New Map" Barnett post:

Consensus growing that Rumsfeld had to go to clear way for Baker's solution set to fly.

No big surprise there. Real clearing is Cheney's, with Rummy as surrogate.

Missing in the analysis so far: with caretaker in Pentagon, Baker now takes over de facto control of the war, as almost his own national security adviser, SECDEF AND SECSTATE.

No big whup for Gates. He knew that coming in. Quiet Hadley will do as told, as will Rice, but in reality, Rice's been replaced without leaving office. Imagine being SECSTATE and kicked off the one foreign policy issue that defines the administration.

Yes, yes, expect many protestations to the contrary and watch Baker go out of his way, using the study group as cover, not to upstage her.

But make no mistake, we now have caretakers (and not the real players) in both the Building and Foggy Bottom.

Sure enough, today's Times says:

The administration officials said that Mr. Bush was aware of Mr. Gates’s critique of current policy and understood that Mr. Gates planned to clear the “E Ring” of the Pentagon, where many of Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s senior political appointees have plotted Iraq strategy.

Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said Thursday afternoon that Mr. Bush regarded his choice of Mr. Gates as “a terrific opportunity” to rethink Iraq.

In doing so, Mr. Gates will be drawing on his experience and contacts from the administration of Mr. Bush’s father, including the former security adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III. “Gates’s world is Brent Scowcroft and Baker and a whole bunch of people who felt the door had been slammed in their face,” one former official who has discussed Iraq at length with Mr. Gates said Thursday. “The door is about to reopen.”

About to reopen onto a world of realpolitik, and that might not be a good thing.

I fear any "solution" (if, in fact, new solutions are really in the offing) might entail engagement with Iran and Syria, asking them to, pretty please, leash their dogs in Iraq and seal the borders from their side. In addition to conjuring images of Lebanon after the (first) Israeli withdrawal, it brings the prospect of Iran's hardliners getting more than they ever dared dream: elimination of Saddam and the Taliban at no cost, de facto control over Iraq (bringing the edge of their control to the frontier of the Gulf Arab states and Jordan), and enough leverage with the United States to allow them to preserve much of their nuclear program.

In fact, this administration should have picked up the phone to talk turkey with Iran and Syria (and, perhaps Turkey, too—why the hell not?) right around the time they were going with the strong, silent type, and disparaging the "Axis of Evil." By belatedly coming around to the idea of engagement, they've made the realpolitikal options unpalatable.

The return of Bakerism to DC compounds the worst mistake of Bush II with the worst mistake of Bush I.

Tags: Gates, Rumsfeld, Baker, George W Bush, George HW Bush, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Thomas PM Barnett