Defense Secretary Gates Tries To Reassure Middle East Countries That U.S. Appeasement of Iran Isn't So Bad

The fact that Defense Secretary Gates even has to make this bloody trip to the Middle East is absurd. In my most vivid imagination, I never thought I'd see the day that the Defense Secretary of the United States of America would be shuttled off to countries like Eygpt and Saudi Arabia to try and convince them that America isn't making a mistake in reaching out to the thuggery in Iran. Imagine it - the Saudis are taking a harder line than the Americans! Welcome to the world of foreign policy under President Barack Obama. Here's some of the details from the report from Yahoo News:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is on his way to the Middle East, seeking to soothe allies worried about Tehran's reach. He said yesterday that efforts to bolster U.S. relations with Iran may still ultimately face what he called "a closed fist."
Gates is flying to Egypt, the first stop on a Mideast tour that continues in Saudi Arabia. He said part of his mission will be to assure Saudis that any U.S. outreach to Iran aims to increase security throughout the region. Gates gets to Cairo on Monday and will be in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Tuesday.
Building diplomacy with Iran "will not be at the expense of our long-term relationships with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that have been our partners and friends for decades," Gates told reporters aboard a military jet headed to Cairo.
"There's probably some concerns in the region that may draw on an exaggerated sense of what's possible," Gates said. "And I just think it's important to reassure our friends and allies in the region that while we're willing to reach out to the Iranians, as the president said, with an open hand, I think everybody in the administration, from the president on down, is pretty realistic and will be pretty tough-minded if we still encounter a closed fist."

I cannot express my disgust with reading those words....."Building diplomacy with Iran" .... I mean it literally nauseates me.

And I want to take this opportunity to explain just WHY Barack Obama decided to keep Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary. Well, first, let me explain away the fallacy of the reasons most of us have heard - it wasn't because Obama wanted someone with current hands on knowledge of all of the world's issues, any choice could have had easy access to that....and it wasn't because Obama wanted to appear bipartisan, as Obama had his own agenda to instill. No, the reason that Barack Obama picked Gates to stay on was the simple fact that Gates is a bureaucrat. Gates is the kind of person that simply follows the agenda of whoever is in charge - this man is the antithesis of Donald Rumsfeld and Obama knew it. Obama knew that when Gates shifted gears and started proposing foreign policy straight from the lips of the new President, that some of the sheep in America would actually attribute that shift to Gates. You have to understand...a "normal" defense secretary from an outgoing President would have fought every single change that Obama wanted to initiate, but not Gates - he is a life-long bureaucrat who simply changes into a whole new set of clothes at the drop of a hat.

That is how this tool, this fool has gotten to the point of some State department-like peon making a public relations trip to the Middle East to soothe the concerns of a bunch of bloody Arabs.

And make no bones about it. Barack Obama is betting the lives of thousands and thousands of American citizens on his choice to sit down and appease the Iranians. I don't know about you but I'm not willing to die from Iranian nuclear radiation burns because my President thought he could make friends with pure evil.

Gates plans to reassure allies on Iran outreach


ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT – Defense Secretary Robert Gates is on his way to the Middle East, seeking to soothe allies worried about Tehran's reach. He said yesterday that efforts to bolster U.S. relations with Iran may still ultimately face what he called "a closed fist."
Gates is flying to Egypt, the first stop on a Mideast tour that continues in Saudi Arabia. He said part of his mission will be to assure Saudis that any U.S. outreach to Iran aims to increase security throughout the region. Gates gets to Cairo on Monday and will be in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Tuesday.
Building diplomacy with Iran "will not be at the expense of our long-term relationships with Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states that have been our partners and friends for decades," Gates told reporters aboard a military jet headed to Cairo.
"There's probably some concerns in the region that may draw on an exaggerated sense of what's possible," Gates said. "And I just think it's important to reassure our friends and allies in the region that while we're willing to reach out to the Iranians, as the president said, with an open hand, I think everybody in the administration, from the president on down, is pretty realistic and will be pretty tough-minded if we still encounter a closed fist."
He also noted concerns throughout the Mideast about Iran's influence in Baghdad, and said they could be staved off if more Arab nations opened embassies or otherwise became more involved in Iraq. Gates praised Egypt, for example, for having "taken some serious steps forward to re-engage."
Critics of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accuse him of forging ties with fellow Shiites who are allied with Iran. The issue has been a flashpoint for Iraq's Sunnis, who, under Saddam Hussein, fought Iran decades ago.
Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will be a major topic for Gates and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak when the two men meet in Cairo early Tuesday. Gates credited Egypt as working as a go-between between the two sides.
Gates said discussions in Riyadh would include U.S. efforts to have Yemeni detainees now being held at the Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rehabilitated in Saudi facilities. An estimated 100 of the 241 Guantanamo detainees are Yemeni. The U.S. is reluctant to release them to Yemen, where convicted terrorists have escaped from prisons. But the Yemeni government has so far balked at agreeing to send the Yemeni detainees to Saudi Arabia.
"Clearly there will be an interest in pursuing that with them," Gates said.
Gates also welcomed any help Saudi officials could give to Pakistan's fragile government.
"The Saudis in particular have considerable influence in Pakistan," he said. "And so I think that whatever they can do to bring Pakistanis together in a broader sense to deal with the challenge to the government in Islamabad obviously would be welcome."

Everyone Jumps On The Trendy Bandwagon - Pakistan Has To Stop The Taliban...NOW!

Well, I'm not going to sit here and tell everyone "I told you so" but ....well hell....I told you so. I've been blogging for months on the activities of the Taliban inside of Pakistan - I screamed at the Pakistani government when they entered into peace agreements with the Taliban when they literally had the Taliban on the ropes a few times...U.S. officials were silent. I have consistently warned that the Taliban were going to be a huge threat to the new government of Pakistan and it's just NOW, in the 11th hour, that Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton start making calls for the Pakistanis to wake up. Oh well, here's the latest report from Reuters on how Gates is pressing the panic button (rightfully so, but WAY late):

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged the leaders of Pakistan to act against the spread of Taliban militancy, saying failure to confront the threat could affect U.S.-Pakistani relations.
In a visit on Thursday to a military installation where Marines are preparing for deployment to Afghanistan, Gates said some Pakistani leaders recognize the "existential threat" facing the country's democratic government from the Taliban.
"But it is important that they not only recognize it but take appropriate actions to deal with it," he told reporters at an outdoor briefing, as small-arms fire from a nearby training range crackled in the distance.
The Taliban's growing influence in northern Pakistan and the loss of ground of the Pakistani government has raised concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed nation.
"The stability and longevity of democratic government in Pakistan is central to the efforts of the coalition in Afghanistan and it is also central to our future partnership with the government in Islamabad," Gates added.
"We want to support them. We want to help them in any way we can. But it is important that they recognize the real threats to their country."

Now that I've vented, I do want to point out something. Over the past year, the Pakistani military has shown that they CAN handle the Taliban if they were permitted to finish a damn job! The Pakistani military has the resources of artillery, troops and air support to handle the Taliban and drive them back but their problem NOW is they have allowed the Taliban to spread out and also become entrenched in more populated areas. In other words, they are in 100 times the shit position than they were six months ago.

Photo note: The photo you see above shows Taliban jihadis walking the streets of the Buner District some 70 miles from Pakistan's capital - the Taliban were not even IN this district two weeks ago.

Finally, I do want to point out here that this is what you get when you negotiate with the Taliban. This is what happens when you try to reach out to 'moderates' in the Taliban. This is the DISASTER that happens when a country's leader decides to back down and instill some leveage to 'moderates.' Hmmm....didn't a major western country's President recently suggest reaching out to moderate Taliban in Afghanistan?

U.S. defense chief urges action on Pakistan militants

CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged the leaders of Pakistan to act against the spread of Taliban militancy, saying failure to confront the threat could affect U.S.-Pakistani relations.
In a visit on Thursday to a military installation where Marines are preparing for deployment to Afghanistan, Gates said some Pakistani leaders recognize the "existential threat" facing the country's democratic government from the Taliban.
"But it is important that they not only recognize it but take appropriate actions to deal with it," he told reporters at an outdoor briefing, as small-arms fire from a nearby training range crackled in the distance.
The Taliban's growing influence in northern Pakistan and the loss of ground of the Pakistani government has raised concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed nation.
"The stability and longevity of democratic government in Pakistan is central to the efforts of the coalition in Afghanistan and it is also central to our future partnership with the government in Islamabad," Gates added.
"We want to support them. We want to help them in any way we can. But it is important that they recognize the real threats to their country."
Gates' comments came a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused Islamabad of abdicating to the Taliban by agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and said Pakistan now posed a "mortal threat" to the world.
Within days of the government's announcement of the imposition of Islamic sharia law in Swat, 125 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, militants forced their way into nearby Buner, closer to the capital Islamabad. They said their aim was to push their harsh version of Islam across the country.
On Thursday, unidentified gunmen attacked a convoy of Pakistani paramilitary troops who deployed to Buner and killed a policeman escorting them.

The "New" Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - Weak, Uncommitted, Embarrassing

It's a sad thing to see what happens when a Defense Secretary goes from serving a patriotic, strong President to a new President who is more concerned about every other country in the world than America. Each day, we see the feminization of Robert Gates and it's gotten to the point where you want to look away. This article over at The Jerusalem Post speaks to how Gates has a different story about Israeli chances of attacking Iran versus what General Petraeus said to Congress this week. Here's some of the excerpts of that stark contrast:

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates played down the chances of an IDF strike on Iran, a day after one of the US's top generals warned Israel might do just that.

The mixed messages highlight the different roles played by Gates, a political appointee implementing the Obama administration's program, and military personnel who are not advocating certain policy goals, according to analysts here. They also pointed to the different assessments with the US government about how close Iran is to obtaining a nuclear weapon and the best way to handle the issue.

"Secretary Gates has a boss. The boss has articulated a course of action. It's not good office politics to outline a threat scenario which is undermining of that policy, at least in public," Berman said, contending that if Iran is seen as being closer to producing a nuclear weapon it hurts the administration's argument that there's time to pursue diplomacy.

While Petraeus told Congress that Israel may very well find itself in a position where they have to destroy or derail the Iranian nuke program, here is what the Obamaized Gates said:

He also said that Iran would "probably not" cross a nuclear "red line" within the year, even as Israeli officials talk about Iran having crossed the technological threshold for making a bomb and setting a timeline for dealing with the issue in months rather than years.
"I think we have more time than that. How much more time I don't know," Gates said of the end-of-2009 benchmark. "It is a year, two years, three years. It is somewhere in that window."

Are you serious, Secretary Gates? The American people put their overall safety in your hands and your take on it is that Iran could have the weapons "somewhere in that window" ??!! Let's say it is one year. What happens then? We've seen the past two weeks how the Obama administration has weak-kneed its way through the North Korean missile launch....are we supposed to feel all safe and comfy when our top Defender has NO CLUE if it will be one year or three years when Iran is ready to start world war?

If we don't think we will pay a supreme price for this new personna of weakness that is being put out there by Obama and Gates, we're in for a painful surprise. We have piss ant countries looking to push America around economically and environmentally because Obama has opened the door for them to do that and now, we are seeing a Secretary of Defense, at the direction of the King Surrenderist, open the door for every fly-by-night islamic regime to hold our nation hostage. Disgusting.

Why is Gates downplaying Iran strike?

"I guess I would say I would be surprised…if they did act this year," Gates told the Financial Times in an interview published late on Wednesday.
He also said that Iran would "probably not" cross a nuclear "red line" within the year, even as Israeli officials talk about Iran having crossed the technological threshold for making a bomb and setting a timeline for dealing with the issue in months rather than years.
"I think we have more time than that. How much more time I don't know," Gates said of the end-of-2009 benchmark. "It is a year, two years, three years. It is somewhere in that window."
His comments contrasted with those of Gen. David Petraeus, the top US army commander in the Middle East, who told Congress Wednesday that Israel "may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."
And Gates's take Wednesday on Iranian nuclear capabilities echoed his comments moderating Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen's more aggressive assessment in February, when he said Teheran had enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb only to have Gates say the Islamic republic wasn't close to having such a weapon.

"The US is clearly schizophrenic in terms of how it views the Iranian threat," asserted Ilan Berman of the American Foreign Policy Council, saying the disagreements over intelligence implications and the correct approach did not end with the Bush administration.
On top of that, he said, the civilian Gates faces a different task than the men in uniform who serve under him at the Pentagon. While the latter present their assessments - often not in the greatest concert with their plain-clothed superiors - Gates has an administration to represent.
"Secretary Gates has a boss. The boss has articulated a course of action. It's not good office politics to outline a threat scenario which is undermining of that policy, at least in public," Berman said, contending that if Iran is seen as being closer to producing a nuclear weapon it hurts the administration's argument that there's time to pursue diplomacy.