Robert Gates, preparing to step down from his job as secretary of defense, has spoken for the first time about his severe doubts about the U.S. wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Gates is reputed to have also opposed U.S. support for the Libya intervention.
What struck me especially in this article was this statement that could’ve been lifted out of Meir Dagan’s testimony against Israel’s plans to attack Iran:
Mr. Gates was asked to confirm reports of policy duels during the two years before Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney left office, a time in which he was said to have been successful in altering policies or blocking missions that might have escalated into another conflict.
“The only thing I guess I would say to that is: I hope I’ve prevented us from doing some dumb things over the past four and a half years — or maybe dumb is not the right word, but things that were not actually in our interest,” Mr. Gates said.
…Some of the defense secretary’s confidants…confirmed that Mr. Gates prevented provocative, adventurist policies against Iran, in particular, that might have spun into war.
…“I also think that he prevented further adventures, particularly in our relationship with countries like Iran, that could have turned into military intervention had he not become secretary of defense,” said [former U.S. Senator David] Boren, who is now president of the University of Oklahoma. “I think that he stepped us back from a policy of brinkmanship.”
This news makes me believe that the red-light that George Bush gave to Ehud Olmert when he visited Washington asking for permission to attack Iran was due in no small part to the opposition of Gates. He was one of the sole sane figures in the administration who stood against the cries for war of Cheney and the war camp. It makes you wonder what might’ve happened if Gates had been defense secretary in 2003 instead of Donald Rumsfeld.
Dagan used almost precisely the same language to describe Bibi Netanyahu’s would-be Iranian adventurism. He called the idea of an attack on Iran, “dumb.” And almost the same scenario is portrayed in the Israeli press when Dagan attended a fateful meeting of senior ministers who had the power to authorize war against Iran. It was the then Mossad chief who almost single-handedly persuaded enough of the ministers to vote No, so that Bibi and Barak’s plans had to be scuttled.
Related articles
- Israeli Strike on Iran Would Be ‘Stupid,’ Ex-Spy Chief Says (nytimes.com)
- Meir Dagan: Israel Attack on Iran ‘Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Heard’ (richardsilverstein.com)
It was the then Mossad chief who almost single-handedly persuaded enough of the ministers to vote No, so that Bibi and Barak’s plans had to be scuttled.
Some Israeli politicians (right wing extremists) have supported an attack on Iran, but Israel’s military and intelligence elite always opposed it. They knew what the results would be. Ironically, they made the same forecast about the Iraq war, and it turned out they were right. Zeev Schiff was one such voice, as was the Mossad head at the time of the Iraq war. He warned it would be disaster, and the US would not win a war in Iraq.
It was the Bush admin’s links with the Israeli right wing rogue elements that led to the Iraq war and they wanted (but failed) to get the US to attack Iran. This is why Bibi was/is so desperate for the support of Christian Zionists. They were the biggest supporters of the Iraq, and now Iran war, because they thought their rapture was nigh.
That was then….today these people are discredited, but the ramifications of their actions are still being felt. It is the Iraq war, that has ruined the US economy. Much like the Afghanistan war led to the destruction of Russia.
Afghanistan. Graveyard of Empires 🙂
He was one of the sole sane figures in the administration who stood against the cries for war of Cheney and the war camp. It makes you wonder what might’ve happened if Gates had been defense secretary in 2003 instead of Donald Rumsfeld.
The spies who pushed for war Thursday July 17, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4714031-103681,00.html
Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force
Key extracts:
The agency, called the Office of Special Plans (OSP), was set up by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to second-guess CIA information and operated under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration, the Pentagon and at the White House, including Vice-President Dick Cheney.
And
The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon’s office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam’s Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.
and
“None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels,” said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith’s authority without having to fill in the usual forms.
continuing from my post above…more on the “staying power” of the neo cons :p
U.S. Neoconservatives Losing Hold Over Republican Foreign Policy
Analysis by Jim Lobe http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=3721
WASHINGTON, 15 Jun 2011
(IPS) – Nearly ten years after seizing control of Republican foreign policy, neo- conservatives and other hawks appear to be losing it.
“This sure isn’t the Republican Party of George Bush, [former Vice President] Dick Cheney, and [former Pentagon chief] Donald Rumsfeld,” exulted one liberal commentator, Michael Tomasky, in the ‘Daily Beast’. “The neo-cons are gone.”
“Is the Republican party turning isolationist for 2012?” asked ‘Washington Post’ columnist Jackson Diehl, a liberal interventionist who has often allied himself with neoconservatives in support of “regime change” against authoritarian governments hostile to the U.S. or Israel.
Its not over. The rout has not been complete.
The Republican party is still saturated with Christian Zionists among the various brands of conservatives, who are more numerous and far more maniacal then Likudniks and neocons. Michele Bachmann and Gingrich are recipients of their support.
As the radical fiscal and social agenda of ‘tea party’ republicans becomes more widely known, the final evisceration of the Republican party will take place in the next general election. Repubs are doing Dems a great favor by reminding the masses why they got rid of them in the first place.
The 2010 midterms were not a decisive year, as it was certain red and blue state politics would reassert the electoral map after the countries blood lust for Bush had been assuaged. And it sure didn’t help when the petulant, cry baby left stayed home and didn’t show up at the polls.
No matter how bad the economy gets its unlikely the Republicans will succeed in blaming Obama for it. Nor is there an anti war movement among the masses plaguing the president. Absent conscription the people could give a damn.
Obama’s favorability ratings remain steady and consistently above 50% and currently out polls the Republican field of contestants, though he loses some points on job performance. Obviously, the only poll that counts is the one taken this coming November 2012, but so long as the Republicans keep making Obama’s case and he doesn’t commit some major screw up he’s tracking for a second term.
Expect an activist president on many fronts after 2012. Zionists live in morbid dread and fear of that inevitability.
The Republican party is still saturated with Christian Zionists among the various brands of conservatives,
Agreed, because they’re numerical, but politically they have not much clout. They’re at the low end of the social spectrum where education and wealth is concerned. Even during the Bush years, they didn’t get anything done for their agenda.
Max Blumenthal’s book “Republican Gomorrah” should be essential reading for every American and for anyone concerned about bringing long term stability to the Middle East. This movement, is receding in influence as more and more including their own ranks realise what it stands for. Its no coincidence that it’s followers include the most ignorant, bigoted, and least productive members of American society.
Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party
http://maxblumenthal.com/buy-republican-gomorrah-inside-the-movement-that-shattered-the-party/
Expect an activist president on many fronts after 2012. Zionists live in morbid dread and fear of that inevitability.
Republicans havn’t a prayer of winning the next election. There is only way they can do that, and i’m hoping none of them has the foresight to do that. Judging from their current candidates however, it’s clear they havn’t hit upon the formula. So it’s cool. Obama is in for a 2nd term 🙂
If you read the article you will see that Gates is not claiming that he opposed the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan–simply that lately he’s been having second thoughts. “Lately” is the operative term here. And apparently his fears of an Iran war were a pretty mainstream Republican view, despite, perhaps Cheney and some Zionist neocons. No doubt Hitler in 1944 was having second thoughts, too. No gold medal for that sort of thing!
Your approach isn’t much better than those here who take me to task for my evolving views of the right of return, w the operative attitude that if I believed something in 2003 then I couldn’t legitimately change my mind about the subject. Can’t we give a guy credit when he comes over to our side…or at least as close to our side as a mainstream Republican is ever gonna come?
I just wanted to respond to this comment since I had asked questions about your position on the Right of Return, and I feel you are not accurately characterizing what I was asking.
There was no desire to “take you to task” for your evolving views – quite the contrary, in fact! My hope was that you would share more about that evolution in greater detail (if you were willing to do so) so that others who are still on that journey might benefit from understanding some of the touchstone moments of your transformation. With all due respect, I felt that what you wrote in response was very general and not especially illuminating (which, of course, is your prerogative, and I do not mean to suggest otherwise).
I certainly do not have the attitude that you cannot change your mind about something you believed in 2003. Again, to the contrary, I have the attitude that the more we read and learn and experience, the more all of us refine and question many of our beliefs. That is one of the many things about this blog that is so admirable – a rigorous and consistent challenging of much of the “accepted wisdom” on these subjects, even (or especially) from liberal Zionists.
I hope this clarifies the spirit of my earlier questions to you on this subject. If this post was not a reference to those earlier questions, I apologize for assuming it was.
Well said, Richard. Totally agree with you here.