Another of those leading figures, Gen. James Mattis of the Joint Forces Command, once thought to be the leading candidate to replace Conway, will apparently retire. Gates nodded to his prospective candidacy by saying he “considered several outstanding candidates.”

The full statement from Gates:

“I am pleased to announce that I have recommended to the President that Gen. James F. Amos be nominated as the next commandant of the United States Marine Corps. Gen. Amos’ combat experience includes command of a Marine aircraft wing and a Marine expeditionary force during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He went on to lead the Marines’ Combat Development Command and serve as deputy commandant for combat development and integration. If nominated and confirmed, Gen. Amos will be the first aviator to attain this post.

“I am also recommending that Lt. Gen. Joseph F. Dunford be promoted to replace Gen. Amos as assistant commandant. Lt. Gen. Dunford is currently the commander of I MEF and U.S. Marine Corps Forces Central Command, with responsibility for all Marines serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters.

“Gen. James Conway will complete his term as commandant this fall and retire from the Marine Corps after four decades of outstanding service. On behalf of the American people, I want to thank Gen. Conway for his faithful and selfless service that included tours as a battalion commander in Operation Desert Storm, a Marine expeditionary force commander in Iraq, and director of operations for the Joint Staff. We will properly recognize Gen. Conway’s extraordinary service at an appropriate time.

“I came to these leadership decisions after a thorough process that considered several outstanding candidates. I am convinced that Gen. Amos and Lt. Gen. Dunford are the right team to lead the U.S. Marine Corps at this time, especially as it balances the capabilities needed to support current operations, its unique maritime heritage and its future role defending America.”

Even President Obama, set to name a new Marine Corps commandant in the coming weeks, is likely to face significant pressure to select someone who is not too outspoken in his opposition to repealing the law. All of the candidates being considered for the job have expressed reservations about repeal during wartime, according to senior U.S. officials familiar with the process.

Gen. James Conway, the outgoing commandant, was the only service chief to actually oppose ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” It hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that the working group Defense Secretary Robert Gates convened to guide the implementing of the repeal of the 17-year-old ban on open gay service will report to Gates in December, after Conway has retired. At the same time, if the next commandant shares Conway’s perspective, then speculation about those two schedules is, at best, academic. We’ll find out when the confirmation hearing for the Conway’s successor gets underway, whoever that successor may be.

All this should underscore that ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is easy — but integrating open gays into the military is a generation-long challenge. Anecdotal information, backed by the general polling trends in the country at large, indicates that junior and mid-career officers are significantly more comfortable with open gay service than the current crop of flag officers. Jaffe’s story illustrates that some challenges for integration — sure to be addressed by Gates’ working group — are the provision of partner benefits to married or partnered gay couples and the freedom of chaplain officers to preach that homosexuality is immoral. Not to fall victim to the complacency of belief in inexorability, but it’s hard to imagine circumstances under which those concerns don’t grow weaker with age. But that still leaves years’ worth of struggles for the military to figure out how to equitably recognize the gay servicemembers it has always had in its ranks.

In response to a question at a Pentagon briefing just now, Stanley said the real answer lies with the Army and Marine Corps. But he said that it was the Pentagon’s desire that forces returning from Iraq “start a two-year dwell period.” He wasn’t really clear about whether that meant the troops rotating out for the combat-troop drawdown that ends in August or the total withdrawal that ends in December 2011. But since Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last month that it’ll probably be “two years” before the expanded dwell time kicks in, we can probably assume Stanley means the final component of troops returning from Iraq in 2011 will be the ones who begin the new, longer dwell period.

My test on this is easy: Would George C. Marshall have accepted such payments? I doubt it. (Remember, he declined to write a memoir that would have made him wealthy because he thought it would have been improper to get into the failings of some of his comrades.)

After leaving the Marine Corps, I joined the monumental fight to end the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, bring our troops home to defend America, and restore a Constitutional foreign policy. Having won the public to our side, it is time we take the fight to the capitol, to the real enemies of the Constitution. Posturing against war while voting to fund it is unacceptable! Tragically, we still have a government that behaves like it owns us, rather than serves us… We need rallying points to keep our movement invigorated and growing, and if a run for Congress from my home town of Santa Fe can serve as one, I will gladly step up.

The 3rd district is safe Democratic turf — President Obama carried it by 23 points over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) while new Rep. Ben Lujan (D) carried the open seat by 27 points. But it has a history of big third party votes, and an anti-war independent candidate won 13 percent of the vote in 2008. Kokesh has enough of a national following (he has spoken at many Ron Paul events) to attract some attention, but unless he raises a lot of money, this might be the latest example of the Democratic base moving on from Iraq War politics and supporting a Democrat despite the slow progress in ending the war.

The conference will also host serious heavy-hitters. Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rashid Wardak. Pakistani Ambassador. to the United States Husain Haqqani. Afghan Ambassador to the United States Said Jawad. Central Command deputy commander Lt. Gen. John Allen. Clare Lockhart, possibly the most knowledgeable western expert in Afghan development there is. Former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmed Jalali. Also, British Lt. Gen. Jonathon Martin, the former deputy commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan. Ret. Gen. Tony Zinni, the former Centcom chief.

You want more? How about a pair of ex-U.S. ambassadors to Iraq, like Robert Finn and Ron Neumann? Peter Ever-Lovin’ Bergen????