Gates Again Undermines the Hawks

[bemildred]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered still more evidence this past week that he has become the most important actor in steering the Bush administration’s foreign policy toward a more realist course, particularly with respect to the Middle East and Iran. (I wrote an article about this for IPS at the end of December.)

No, I’m not talking about his critique of the counter-insurgency skills of Washington’s NATO partners, a rare, Rumsfeld-like gaffe, from which he quickly retreated. Rather, I’m referring to his interview on NPR Thursday — just as President Bush was wrapping up his tour of the region — during which Gates was asked whether he considered Iran to be “the greatest threat that the United States is likely to face in the final year of this administration.” His answer must have caused serious heartburn in the Vice President’s office. “Well,, I think Iran is, certainly, one of the most significant challenges,” Gates replied to the question.

“We continue to be concerned about their ongoing enrichment programs, their unwillingness to suspend in the face of broad international pressure to do so. So I think it will continue to be a challenge.”

STEVE INSKEEP: Is there a reason you described them as a challenge rather than a threat?

GATES: Well, when I think of a threat, I think of a direct military threat and, while the jury is out in terms of whether they have eased up on their support to those opposing us in Iraq, I don’t see the Iranians in the near term as a direct military threat to the United States.”

It’s important to put this exchange in the context both of the purported confrontation between U.S. warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard speedboats in the Straits of Hormuz the previous week and of Bush’s trip to the region, a major theme of which was the “threat” posed by Iran not just to its Gulf neighbors, but to all countries, presumably including the United States.

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=97