Defense Secretary Robert Gates prom ised Congress on Thursday that there will be no US ground troops in Libya — “as long as I’m on the job.”
Wait a minute.
Who made him president?
Or, taken another way, isn’t that the sort of advice a Cabinet officer gives a president — behind closed doors?
Isn’t the world confused enough about Obama administration Mideast policy — or lack thereof — without Gates going off the rails in public?
Gates — known as a prudent team player — has made too many comments of this nature in recent days.
After military action began, Gates declared that Libya wasn’t “a vital interest” of the United States.
In a February speech at West Point, he told cadets, “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined’ ” — a seeming slap at the official policy of the last two administrations.
In fairness, working for Obama is no walk in the park. The learning curve for this president — elected on a de facto anti-war platform — has been steep.
He meandered for nearly a year on the appropriate troop levels in Afghanistan and dithered for weeks on Libya.
But once any president has made a decision, his team must execute policy. Public dissension — even the passive-aggressive sort that Gates has demonstrated of late — undermines the country.
Perhaps Gates is simply tired.
When then-President-elect Obama announced in November 2008 that he would retain Gates — who’d already completed two years in the Bush Pentagon — the sense was that it would only be for a year or so.
That was two-plus years ago.
It may not yet be time to go, but it’s well past time for Gates to quit adding to the Obama confusion.