Obama mentor warns over Clinton choice

President Bush’s Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, has been asked to stay on in his post and has accepted, according to officials last night, a move that will give Barack Obama significant credibility with the US military but will dismay the liberal wing of his own party.

The re-appointment of Mr Gates, who took over from Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, would fulfil Mr Obama’s pledge to have at least one Republican in his Cabinet.

The President-elect is also expected to announce that James Jones, the retired commander of US and Nato forces in Europe, will become his National Security Adviser – his chief foreign policy adviser in the White House. He has served both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The announcements are expected to be made after tomorrow’s Thanksgiving holiday, and will include the formal announcement of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

The series of national security announcements is striking because it shows Mr Obama putting together a team of tough, pragmatic, foreign policy advisers. Although he has promised to carry out a phased withdrawal of US combat troops, the appointment shows that he views anything less than an ultra-cautious drawdown as reckless. Supporters who believed that he would end US involvement quickly will be disappointed.

The move to retain Mr Gates is also based upon Mr Obama’s repeated pledge that one of his top foreign priorities is to significantly increase the US troop presence in Afghanistan when he takes office. Mr Gates, who oversaw the “surge” of troops in Iraq, also favours such an approach and his continuation as Defence Secretary will ensure that such a policy proceeds without delay.

General Jones, who retired as commandant of the US Marines last year after 40 years of service, is a 6ft 4in towering presence and an expert on both Iraq and Afghanistan.

A decorated Vietnam veteran and former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he is admired by Republicans and Democrats – he is a close friend of John McCain – but is also close to Hillary Clinton. He enjoys such cross-party appeal that in 2006 he was twice asked by Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s Secretary of State, to be her deputy. He declined.

General Jones has been a critic of Mr Bush’s foreign policy and decried what he described as Donald Rumsfeld’s “systematic emasculation” of the US military’s top brass. “Make no mistake, Nato is not winning in Afghanistan,” General Jones said. He also complained that the war in Iraq had caused the US to “take its eye off the ball” in Afghanistan – a view shared by Mr Obama.

Before Mr Obama travelled to Afghanistan during the presidential campaign he was briefed by General Jones, who in 2007 was appointed by Dr Rice as a special envoy for Middle East Security.

The nominations of Mr Gates and General Jones will anger the antiwar wing of the Democratic party. They will have to come terms with the fact that Mr Obama appears intent on governing as a muscular foreign policy realist. He is packing the team with experience. Retired Navy admiral Dennis Blair, the former commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Command and a veteran of the US intelligence community, is expected to be named the director of national intelligence.

It has also emerged that the President-elect has been seeking advice from Brent Scowcroft, the Republican national security adviser under President Ford and the first President Bush.

Other nominations expected to be announced next week include Susan Rice, a former foreign policy adviser in the Clinton White House as UN Ambassador. Jim Steinberg, a former deputy national security adviser under Mr Clinton, is believed to be heading to the State Department as deputy secretary of state.

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