“You misread history.”
I did not “misread” the history of American Middle East policies engineered by Baker-Scowcroft, the history of the failures of those policies, the history of the conditions they produced - “stability” of the regime of Saddam Husseein and US.OK to Syria to move into Lebanon.
Neither did I “misread” the history of Gates friendship with Baker and Scowcroft.
Nor did I misread the history of Admiral Fallon trying to prevent the Petraeus “surge” from becoming American policy.
You’re leaving Cheney out of that triad. Cheney also has a long working history with those 3, particularly with Gates.