Much as we may wish it, Cheney's teeth has not been pulled

Looking for Cheney
Where did the vice president stand on the question of firing Rumsfeld? Where does he stand now?
By Robert Kuttner/American Prospect

In the 10 days since President Bush fired Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one figure is eerily missing from public view and public accounts of what occurred: Vice President Dick Cheney. As usual, America's de facto prime minister is either literally or metaphorically in an undisclosed location.

With Rumsfeld, Cheney was responsible for the 180-degree reversal in Bush's professed foreign policy -- remember, Bush was the candidate who didn't believe in getting U.S. troops involved in "nation-building." As much as Rumsfeld, Cheney was architect of both the Iraq war and the deeper doctrine behind the war -- neo conservative assertion of America's unilateral military might. Cheney, along with Rumsfeld, signed the 1997 manifesto of the so-called Project for a New American Century, calling for the United States to police the world in the name of democracy.

A newly democratic Iraq, courtesy of U.S. shock, awe, and moral authority, was going to be the key to broader Middle East peace, as westernized Islam came to terms with American power and settled its conflict with Israel. This entire doctrine, along with Rumsfeld's career, died in the ashes of the Iraq civil war.

But what of Cheney's career? You can't fire the vice president. But you can decide to give him greater or lesser authority. Has Cheney just gotten a big demotion? Was Rummy dumped over Cheney's strenuous objection?

In short, will Rumsfeld's abrupt dismissal finally diminish Cheney's unprecedented dominance of Bush? Or did the always cunning vice president read the writing on the wall and decide that it was time for his good friend Rumsfeld to go?

We will probably not know the definitive answer until people start writing memoirs, and Dick Cheney is not in the habit of giving me candid background interviews. But here are some clues.

The general premise in Washington is that James Baker is the big winner in the latest Republican power struggle, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the secondary gainer. Baker is an arch-rival to Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the neocons.

Baker, who served both Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush and who now chairs a bipartisan panel with Democrat Lee Hamilton charged with looking for a way out of Iraq, has a far more traditional "realist" view of foreign policy. In the Middle East mess, he has said explicitly said that he believes in engaging enemies, meaning in this case Syria and Iran, a doctrine anathema to Cheney and company. The designated successor to Rumsfeld is Robert Gates, a close ally of Baker.

In all these respects, recent events seem a stunning setback for the vice president. But never count the wily Cheney out.

For one thing, Cheney has placed allies all over the government. Many of the people who actually run Cabinet departments effectively report to him. Elliott Abrams, the ultra-hawk in charge of Middle East policy, is a Cheney man. So the Cheney apparatus has an institutional staying power that is unlikely to be rooted out.

For another, it's not as if Baker is going to pull a rabbit out of a hat. The bad news about the apparent receptivity to a different Iraq policy is that there is no easy solution in the wings, awaiting only regime-change in the United States

When the Baker-Hamilton Commission does release its long-awaited recommendations in January, after months of drum rolls, they could turn out to be just a series of policy options. Even a bold idea, such as U.S. pursuit of a broader regional settlement, would be far from self-executing.

It's clear that the plan to replace Rumsfeld was set in motion several weeks before the election, after multiple conversations, and that Bush I, Baker, Rice, and Cheney were all players. My informed guess is that, when the time came for a decision, Cheney decided to be on the winning side.

Although Baker is now a secondary power center in the Bush constellation, it is just not believable that Baker has displaced Cheney as the single most potent influence on Bush. The Oedipal complexities of Bush's awkward rift with his father make it unlikely that Baker is the new power behind the throne. You can see already Cheney's pushback against the Baker-Hamilton commission in the internal review of Iraq policy that the administration has begun, well in advance of the release of Baker's report.

Commissions come and go. Cheney's influence over war-making will be somewhat diluted by the presence of Robert Gates at the Pentagon. But the vice president remains the ultimate in-fighter.

(Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe.)