Vice-president faces isolation over Iran and Syria after key ally leaves Pentagon

The new Rumsfeld-free administration leaves Dick Cheney without a key ally when it comes to how the administration should approach Iran and Syria. James Baker is known to favour entering into talks with both in order to bring the chaos in Iraq to an end, a development that Cheney has always resisted. However, since Rumsfeld has departed Cheney will now be a much more isolated figure within the Bush administration.

"He's isolated but you know when you corner a dangerous animal, it doesn't make him any less dangerous," said a senior Democratic foreign policy official. "He's going to continue to push for what he believes in. It doesn't mean he's going to put his toys away and go home."

And although there are doubts that Rummy's replacement would ever have the courage to challenge Cheney, there can be no denying that Condaleezza Rice's hand has just been substantially strengthened.

Mr Gates and Miss Rice know each other from their days as Soviet experts in the White House of Bush the First and are both said to be more comfortable surrounded by the pragmatists of Bush the First rather than the zealots that have surrounded Bush the Second.

Indeed, the proposal of Gates as Rumsfeld's replacement represents a considerable victory for the father over the son, as the father was known never to have favoured the Iraq intervention.

Gates is very much one of Bush's father's people. Indeed, he is even a member of the commission headed by Baker due to report their recommendations regarding Iraq to President Bush soon. His appointment guarantees that Baker will be given a favourable hearing.

As the Iraq war grinds on, and the broader neoconservative project in the Middle East is sliding towards disaster, former aides to the elder Bush - once spurned by his son - are reappearing one by one at the policy-making helm.

"In the past, when Bush got enmeshed in a big mistake ... daddy came to the rescue - that's what's happening here," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former counter-terrorist chief of operations at the CIA. "Daddy was insistent on getting Gates in."

There's something almost Shakespearean about all this. Daddy is stepping in to tell the errant youngster that he can't have his war. Oh, there will be temper tantrums, but at the end of the day the GOP know they face another election in two years time and they can't risk another meltdown at the polls like the one they have just witnessed.

So Daddy is about to take Junior's war away from him.

Both Mr Baker and Mr Gates have advocated the multilateralism that was typical of Bush senior but not Bush junior. In particular they believe the US should talk to Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.

Mr Gates co-authored a study on Iran policy two years ago which concluded that Washington should hold comprehensive talks with Tehran before it achieved nuclear capability. His fellow author was President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who yesterday declared Mr Gates's selection as "the best appointment President Bush has made in the course of his six years in office."

However, resistance to opening a dialogue with Iran will be fierce, particularly from Mr Cheney, and Mr Baker has made clear his commission will have no easy solutions to the mess in Iraq.

No easy solutions means talking to Iran and Syria. George will take this news petulantly and may even stomp off to his room, but he'll glumly accept what Daddy tells him.

Big fat Dick will sit in a corner and fume; isolated and alone, mumbling that age old childish refrain, "It's just not fair!"

The boys have had their fun, now it's time for the adults to step in and clear up the mess.

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A change in direction

And then there was Dick. With the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney now stands as the last of the true believers in George Bush's inner circle. Paul Wolfowitz went long ago; Richard Perle and several of his fellow neocons now slam the Iraq war they once promoted. From today, when the president gathers his team around him to discuss the future of Iraq, only Cheney will cling to the old faith.

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