Cheney, By Proxy

"Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been . . . explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

"This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an 'end run strategy' around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

"The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles). . . .

"The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice [and others] have sculpted.

"According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the 'right decision' when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands."

Cooper, in the New York Times, writes: "In interviews, people who have spoken with Mr. Cheney's staff have confirmed the broad outlines of the reports, and said that some of the hawkish statements to outsiders had been made by David Wurmser, a former Pentagon official who is now the principal deputy assistant to Mr. Cheney for national security affairs. The accounts were provided by people who expressed alarm about the statements, but refused to be quoted by name."

And Michael Hirsh and Mark Hosenball write in Newsweek: "A Newsweek investigation shows that Cheney's national-security team has been actively challenging Rice's Iran strategy in recent months. 'We hear a completely different story coming out of Cheney's office, even now, than what we hear from Rice on Iran,' says a Western diplomat whose embassy has close dealings with the White House. Officials from the veep's office have been openly dismissive of the nuclear negotiations in think-tank meetings with Middle East analysts in Washington, according to a high-level administration official who asked for anonymity because of his position. Since Tehran has defied two U.N. resolutions calling for a suspension of its uranium-enrichment program, 'there's a certain amount of schadenfreude among the hard-liners,' says a European diplomat who's involved in the talks but would not comment for the record. And Newsweek has learned that the veep's team seems eager to build a case that Iran is targeting Americans not just in Iraq but along the border of its other neighbor, Afghanistan.

"In the last few weeks, Cheney's staff have unexpectedly become more active participants in an interagency group that steers policy on Afghanistan, according to an official familiar with the internal deliberations. During weekly meetings of the committee, known as the Afghanistan Interagency Operating Group, Cheney staffers have been intensely interested in a single issue: recent intelligence reports alleging that Iran is supplying weapons to Afghanistan's resurgent Islamist militia, the Taliban, according to two administration officials who asked for anonymity when discussing internal meetings. . . .

"Rice has more directly clashed with Cheney's office on issues like Mideast peace, where according to administration sources who declined to be named discussing internal deliberations, she's found herself stymied in efforts to push for more engagement with Syria and the Palestinian radical group Hamas. A senior White House official concedes that even on what should be the simplest-to-achieve deal -- a new relationship with Syria that would help stabilize Iraq -- Cheney's office is blocking Rice's efforts to bring Bush around. The secretary has also fought with the veep's office in seeking to soften detention policies at Guantanamo. In the interview, however, Rice insisted her relationship with Cheney himself is good. 'The vice president has never been somebody who tries to [undermine others] on the sidelines, behind the scenes. He really doesn't,' she said. 'In fact we have a kind of friendly banter about it, in which I'll tease him about the image that he doesn't like diplomacy.'"

Reviewing Cheney's M.O.

Laura Rozen wrote earlier this year for the Washington Monthly that Cheney "is no novice in the art of bureaucratic warfare. He has long surrounded himself with impeccably loyal aides who both share his worldview of a powerful presidency unchecked by the legislative branch, and who have also installed like-minded allies throughout the government. Such allies provide crucial intelligence of inter-departmental debates, enabling Cheney to make end-runs around the bureaucracy and head off opposing views at key meetings. Call it Cheney's state within the state."

In my Feb. 7 column, Cheney Doesn't Share, I noted a memorable scene of the inner workings of the Bush White House that unfolded in the federal courthouse where Libby was on trial -- a scene that gave credence to the widespread view that Cheney oversees his own secretive, defensive and sometimes ruthless operation within the White House, and that he does so with Bush's approval but often outside the view of Bush's top aides.

And Peter S. Canellos wrote in his Boston Globe column last April that "while it may be logical that the second-most clout in the country should go to the elected vice president rather than a Cabinet secretary or staff mountebank, the disadvantages of such a power structure are becoming apparent. For while statements and policies crafted by staff members or Cabinet secretaries can be disavowed and the official sent packing, the vice president can't be dismissed.