A sign of the times

The 800-pound militarization gorilla

The big news story over the weekend was Bush/Cheney apparently changing tactics and for the first time, sending a top diplomat to negotiate with the Iranians. Why the change now--pressure from the Obama campaign and overwhelming response to his speech in Berlin? Could it forestall a missile attack by the Israelis--an attack which would, in the words of UN atomic watchdog chief, Mohamed ElBaradei turn the whole region into "a ball of fire?"

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Clues may be found in the ongoing rift between the State and Defense departments, which has apparently been turned upside down. During Bush’s first administration, it was Colin Powell at State half-heartedly trying to put politics and diplomacy in command of U.S. foreign policy while Rumsfeld at Defense was pushing for his department to be the main policy driver and to militarize foreign policy.

Now its Defense Secretary Robert Gates who is talking openly in the Washington Post about “creeping militarization” of foreign policy.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism… "As a career CIA officer, I watched with some dismay the increasing dominance of the defense 800-pound gorilla in the intelligence arena over years," said Gates.

Is it just me or does this guy sound a lot like Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in his 1961 farewell presidential address, warned the nation, to no avail, about the emergence of that same “gorilla,” the military-industrial complex?