What does it mean that America's top spies have moved to the forefront of Middle East policy?

First it was General Michael Hayden, the head of the CIA, who traveled to Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port of Jeddah to deliver a message from the White House to King Abdullah.

Then it was John Negroponte, the director of National Intelligence, who stopped in Baghdad last Friday to reorganize the deck chairs on America's desert Titanic. In the process, Negroponte (who was America's first ambassador to Iraq post-2003) made it clear that Ambassador Khalilzad was out, telling Prime Minister Maliki that Khalilzad would be returning home around Jan. 1.