Posted on 01/16/2014 5:21:09 PM PST by Nachum
Midway through Barack Obama’s first term as president, U.S. officials grew alarmed that Israel might launch a unilateral air strike against Iran’s nuclear program. Iran had snubbed Obama’s outreach after the 2008 election, and rejected an October 2009 international proposal to ship most of its enriched uranium out of the country—stirring pessimism about prospects for a future breakthrough.
“Militarily, I thought we needed to prepare for a possible Israeli attack and Iranian retaliation,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates writes in his new memoir, Duty. At a January 2010 Oval Office meeting, Gates told Obama “he needed to consider the ramifications of a no-warning Israeli attack,” including whether the U.S. would assist Israel and how it would respond to Iranian retaliation.
Around the same time, senior officials met to discuss ways the U.S. might dissuade Israeli Prime Minister from taking unilateral action. In one such meeting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised a bracing question, two former Obama administration officials tell TIME: Was it possible that, instead of trying to restrain Israel, the U.S. should instead provide what one of those official described as “a tacit green light to the Israelis to take care of the problem for us”? In other words, instead of begging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give diplomacy more time, perhaps it was worth telling him to go proceed with airstrikes.
(Excerpt) Read more at swampland.time.com ...
Now stop worrying about Benghazi damnit!
The interview with Hannity the other day was pathetic. Gates backpedalled on practically everything.
Should Gates be revealing this stuff?
Thanks Nachum.
Iran Laughs at Obama as He Says “Give Peace a Chance”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3112568/posts
Foreign Policy Has Left Obama A Global Laughing Stock
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3112577/posts
Yep! She just won Florida.
I have no respect for Gates. It sounds like he was given many opportunities to go public and resign in protest.
He reminds me of McNamara. He said he “knew” the Viet Nam war was lost but kept sending soldiers to their deaths. May he rot in hell!
LOL, yep.
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