"It comes from me..."

Fred Kaplan of Slate has an excellent piece on Temporary Obama Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that almost convinces me.

And by "almost" I really say that...well...okay, fine Kaplan convinced me:

It would be a mistake to regard Gates as merely a holdover from the Bush administration. Literally, of course, he is. But since coming to the Pentagon in December 2006, he has altered the dynamics of decision-making and, as a result, of policy.

Before Gates, the National Security Council was dysfunctional. Rumsfeld would skip meetings and refuse to let his deputies speak on his behalf. His tag-team partner, Vice President Dick Cheney, would block the NSC from forming a consensus on issues that concerned him; instead he would meet alone with President Bush afterward, a practice that compelled the secretary of state—Colin Powell in the first term, Condoleezza Rice in the second—to go around the process as well.

When Gates came onboard, he demanded high-level meetings, with all the players present, debating their positions all at once before the president, with a decision made at the end. Some officials contend that it is because of Gates that U.S. troops are coming out of Iraq a bit more rapidly than they might have otherwise—and that Bush hasn't bombed Iran.

If that's the case (about Iran) I am eternally grateful.