Did Bush make the USA safer?
No.
Secretary Gates took over an aggresive global agenda from Don Rumsfeld in 2006. December 18, 2006. Just before Christmas if that makes a difference.
I never envied his job post Rumsfeld and here is some of the aftermath of a Neocon determined to bring the global community under his thumb.
The contract Syria made with Russia was in 2007. Three years ago. There was dearly little to anything Secretary Gates could do to stop it. Upping the 'ante' was all part of the justification of Bush and Cheney to increase the dominance of the USA. Disarming was not in Bush's dogma. He didn't understand the defintion of disarmament. If one recalls he trashed the ABM Treaty.
So, what does a Robert Gates do about alliances that were taking place out of the need to secure their nations from a very aggressive and ambitious USA that wanted to rob the world of its natural resources to fuel the treasuries of companies such as Halliburton?
What Gates position was in 2007 with Bush as President was to maintain maximum readiness while concentrating on Iraq and its 'staging' to elections, etc.
When it came to promoting peace there was no 'path' to success. So, nations such as Syria which BORDERED Iraq was not about to be caught unprepared to protect its borders and rightfully so. I am sure the 'finger pointing' by Rumsfeld at porous borders with Syria raised the ante all that much more.
So now, three years later, Syria is looking at a very different set of dynamics. The USA is no longer engaged in battle and aggression in Iraq, we are concentrating on an insurgency in Afghanistan and the USA is no longer waving its finger at Syria about porous borders.
So, Russia is faced with living up to its contracts or BY CHANCE reconsidering such contracts to promote the Middle East Peace Process. Will Secretary Gates and Secretary Clinton be able to deliver security to Syria, to provide confidence to allow that nation to step away from such a contract?
Perhaps. But, there is a dynamics in the Middle East that cannot be denied. Increasing the 'hardware of war' has been on the agenda and after all we just began the process of settling a huge contract with Saudi Arabia ourselves.
I believe there is an opportunity to bring down the 'armament' tone of the Middle East, but, to be realistic 'at this point' the sincerely open path to all parties is to achieve a sense of security of nations and assess the 'likelihood' of those nations to actually use those weapons in aggression rather than defense.
To say the USA has a difficult 'path to peace' with all these nations is an understatement, but, to also realize it is proceeding and there is definately progress being made. Not minor progress, but, sincere and measurable progress that seems like a 'relief' to Palestine as well as Israel.
The 'balance' to the Middle East has to be established and it means making these nations realize the brevity to their decisions in purchasing such weapons, the brevity of spending monies on weapons rather than on their people and the brevity of going to war.
The USA will never abandon Israel and 'in that' is the reality that Syria will have a good deal of trouble in stockpiling such weapons and placing itself at the center of a 'target' for even housing such weapons.
The decision of 'arming a nation' has its own brevity and it is best all nations in the Middle East take it seriously and realize this is not a decision to make without its consequences.
I do not see why this 'contract' that was entered into under the umbrella of fear by the Bush White House cannot still be rethought, but, if it should go forward I do not see why it will ever be an impediment to peace. After all, Taiwan now has a productive relationship with China (which has nuclear weapons) and they never gave up their defense posture nor ever stopped protecting its people.
I do believe Secretary Clinton needs to get on with drawing up the ultimate contract and that is the one that will make all these armaments in the Middle East seeem completely silly.
