Rumsfeld's masters at the Pentagon
Since the job was created, no defence secretary has dominated the American stage as much as Donald Rumsfeld. He became famous during the war in Afghanistan against the Taleban and al-Qaeda for his pithy and sometimes ruthless comments during press conferences.
But is he driving policy? Dominating the stage is not the same as determining the ends and goals. Others might be burrowing under the stage, allowing the grand performance to divert attention from the much bigger game: establishing where US foreign policy is going and who is benefiting.
Just over 27 years ago, Mr Rumsfeld entered the Pentagon for the first time as defence secretary. I was appointed to his office. We all knew him to be a canny, clever, self-confident fellow. He had got the job through his own role in a palace coup, under which Henry Kissinger's powerful role was diminished in president Gerald Ford's administration. Mr Rumsfeld had been White House chief of staff and masterminded the cabinet shuffle.
The first thing he did was initiate a 'wiring diagram' inquiry (a plan to reorganise personnel). Today, his ability to rearrange the responsibilities of the armed forces is often touted as a sign of his supposed supremacy. But in his earlier incarnation at the Pentagon, he knew precious little of defence issues.
By ordering the review, he put everyone on their guard, buying time to study the issues and policies within the building. It was a masterstroke. Within months, he was bringing congressmen in by the droves to convince them of the seriousness of the Soviet threat-and the concurrent need for enhanced Pentagon budgets.
He adopted the policies of the hardline Committee on the Present Danger, which was, at the time, still in the making. As a founding member, I could only applaud as Mr Rumsfeld acted persuasively to carry out the recommendations that would soon be made public. Although he had a record as a hardliner, he really chose the 'present danger' agenda because it was available and convenient.
Today, it is hardly a secret that a cabal of senior officials has put in place the US foreign policy goals to favour a single recipient country. Mr Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary for policy Douglas Feith, and Richard Perle, until recently the chairman of the most influential defence advisory board, have quietly reigned supreme. And the triumvirate has well nigh brought about a revolution.
What the three have in common is a devotion to Israeli causes, to the point where it is often asked whether there is a conflict of interest with their American citizenship. All three opposed the Oslo peace process and advocated a permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank. I can recall a lunch with Mr Feith some time ago, where another person present simply assumed he was an Israeli.
President George W. Bush, a neophyte in foreign policy, had all but abandoned the urgent and necessary goal of a Palestinian state - until his Iraq policy was on the verge of crumbling and he could not ignore European and Middle Eastern demands for a return to the peace process. He then proceeded with his war on Iraq, now emerging as a first step in a realignment of power that could provide Israel with a pre-eminence in the region that would leave any Palestinian entity at its mercy.
True, Mr Rumsfeld looks very enthusiastic about US policies. But they originated in an epochal policy paper that Mr Wolfowitz wrote for the Pentagon when he was in Mr Feith's job in the first Bush administration. Mr Rumsfeld has gone along with it because it has given him a chance to test his favoured new tactics and strategy of warfare - shock and awe, speed and overwhelming rapid force. Mr Rumsfeld used the generation between his two incarnations as defence secretary to become wealthy and to do yeoman's service for several presidents. He came back immensely more confident and knowledgeable. Yet the more one reads his pronouncements, the more it looks like he is back in 1975 - playing with wiring diagrams.
Scott Thompson was an assistant to the US secretary of defence from 1975 to 1976, and served as an assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration. He is a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Massachusetts
