Yesterday, as it was reported that Rumsfeld would be stepping down, and Robert Gates would be nominated in his stead, I started to wonder what was behind all this. Why Gates? Who was pushing this nomination?
As others have deduced, it appears that Bush 41 has decided to make his mark on his son's Administration. Gates is a retread from 41's administration. This is not for the better. Gates has to account for his actions in 41's Administration, particularly in what he said and did in relation to the 1991 Gulf War including the Shi'ite and Marsh Arab uprisings against Saddam that led to more than 100,000 dead. Stopping short of doing the right thing led to disasterous consequences, and we need to heed the fact that we're on the precipice of doing the same thing once again.
And then there's that whole little constitutional crisis known as Iran Contra. Will the Democrats overlook that little episode so that they can get someone at the Pentagon who will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Gates is the wrong person at the wrong time for the wrong mission.
I don't see this as a step in fighting the war more vigorously as Austin Bay does. I see this as a way to conduct "peace with honor reloaded." Another way to put it is Vietnam, Part II: The Iraqi Option.
Gates has been involved in the Baker led evaluation team on Iraq, and his recommendations are pretty much in sync with the cut and run. This is not the time and place to cut and run. The terrorists are on the run (and must continue to be hunted down and the threats eliminated), and this only signals that they simply have to outlast any US government that takes a stand. That can be as little as two years, or as long as six years. The terrorists will be on the march, and our allies will regard us far more warily if we want to deal with these threats going forward. They'll see that we simply do not have the resolve to see things through.
Gates wants to open dialogue with Iran, which I see as being pointless. What's the point of engaging in diplomacy if there's no common ground. Iran's mullahs want to impose its view of Islam on the rest of the region and the world. They want nuclear weapons, and are engaging in the necessary research to achieve that goal. The only question is how much time before they've achieved their goal.
They believe that Israel should be annihilated. They believe that their proxy military - Hizbullah - is an extension of that policy. They support Hizbullah, Hamas, and other Islamic terror groups in their jihad against the West.
Where is the common ground? You cannot negotiate with someone unless there is common ground. Trying to get Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions borders on extortion - and the likelyhood that an inspection regime combined with an enforcement protocol are slim given the way Russia and China have been running interference for Tehran.
The US interests in a democratic independent Iraq run counter to Iran's goals. Is the US simply going to try and bribe its way to assuring the Iranians don't try to further destabilize and undermine the Iraqi government? Iraq and Iran are not unrelated problems.
They're part of the same problem.
And Gates is not offering anything new.
He doesn't placate the leftists who made Rumsfeld the locus of their ire. He is not going to provide a sea change in how the Pentagon operates. The changes made in the Pentagon's operations over the past six years need to be continued because unless the Congress appropriates more to expanding the military, the need to speed up the transformational programs delivered by Rumsfeld will be even greater. Congress under the Democrats would not willingly do so, and would sooner cut off funding for the Iraqi operations than spend more on the Pentagon's transformation to deal with emerging threats.
Yesterday, I noted how the Democrats want more money spent on addressing intel on emerging threats in Africa and Africa. That's a reasonable and good idea. The problem is what to do with such intel. What if they find those emerging threats. If the military does not have the necessary forces to handle those threats, let alone the political will to deal with the threats over the long term, the intel will simply be a footnote in history.
I've long argued that the Darfur genocide, the human rights failings in Somalia and elsewhere in Africa are all harbingers of turning those lawless regions into terrorist havens. Having the forces capable of dealing with these threats is one mission that must be expanded and maintained at a high level of readiness. Rumsfeld's transformational policies got in the way of the Army generals who wanted to continue with Cold War style programs like the Crusader mobile gun system that was anything but mobile. Billions were spent on the system before it was killed - freeing up that money for other projects.
Changing any bureaucracy will be sure to result in hurt feelings and toes that are stepped on. Whoever replaces Rumsfeld will have to deal with not only continuing the transformation, but soothing the hurt feelings. I think Gates was going to do more of the latter, and less of the former. That's why he is not the right person for the job.
UPDATE:
Former Spook finds that Gates is the wrong man for the wrong job particularly because of his managerial style and because the CIA during his tenure consistently got its assessment of the situation in the Soviet Union wrong. Another intel guy thinks Gates might be a good fit because of his covert ops in Eastern Europe and their potential applicability in Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
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