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."