Just as I couldn’t get very worked up about Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush I can’t get too worked up about his dismissal. His purpose like Dick Cheney’s, obviously, was to be a lightning rod and lately that hasn’t been working out too well.
Will Robert Gates be a better deflector (or, perhaps, absorber) of criticism than his predecessor? His apparent views on Iran call into question the ideas that I’ve heard here and there of military action against Iran before the end of Bush’s term. Gates’s appointment would seem to support my belief that this just isn’t on.
I’ve got to admit that, if the involvement of James Baker and Robert Gates in the present administration’s deliberation signals a return to foreign policy realism, I view it with a certain amount of dismay.
Worse. Realism is what brought us a policy of support for regional powers to maintain stability in the Middle East (i.e. “support of repressive regimes†e.g. the Shah, the KSA, Egypt) and huge military bases all over the region (i.e. “occupation of Muslim landsâ€) when that didn’t work out. Under a “realistic†policy is unlikely that we would see much interventionism to spread or support democracy, promote human rights, or promote economic liberalization.
