The Financial Times reports that Barack Obama is "negotiating terms" under which Robert Gates will remain as Secretary of Defense in an Obama administration. It was widely assumed that Gates would keep his job regardless of who won the election and while I've heard conflicting reports about whether he wants to stay, his success means he will almost certainly be offered the choice. If McCain had won, Gates merely would have been rewarded for his competence -- a rare quality in the Bush administration but one that was increasingly visible in the management of the war. For Obama, Gates could be of far greater value. Barack Obama's problem is that he promised a withdrawal from Iraq that is neither prudent nor possible. More than that, withdrawal at the pace Obama demanded during the primary is no longer warranted: it's clear we're winning the war. It was good politics to promise a withdrawal during the primary, and it was something of a wash during the general election, but it would be a complete disaster to deliver on that promise as President. Perhaps the most serious foreign policy mistake Obama made during the election was to support unconditional meetings with our enemies (bad politics and bad policy), and he's since made fairly clear that he has no intention of following through on that promise. Why should his 16 month timeline for withdrawal from Iraq be any different? The new Iraqi deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces is 32 months, rather than the 16 Obama had promised during the primary, and it may well be possible to safely remove the bulk of U.S. forces by the end of 2011. What Gates can do is provide Obama with the cover to remove troops more quickly. Gates will be one of only a few voices who can credibly say that the facts on the ground allow for Obama's timeline -- that Obama isn't threatening the gains made by U.S. troops. But Gates can also help provide Obama with the cover to move a little more slowly than his supporters might like -- another voice cautioning, from the inside, against too quick a draw-down. There's almost no one who would object to keeping Gates at the helm. As Harry Reid approvingly noted, Gates isn't even a registered Republican. The usual suspects will whine about how this isn't the change they were promised, or that keeping Gates furthers the perception that Democrats are soft on defense -- in this case too soft for even Obama to find one up to the task of secretary -- but that's all background noise. Pardoning Lieberman, reaching out to Clinton, and keeping on Gates -- perhaps things won't be as bad as we feared.