ANALYSIS: The realist resurgence

Gates led realist resurgence in 2007
By Jim Lobe, Antiwar, December 28, 2007

2007 will likely go down in US history as the year in which the balance of power in the long-running struggle between hawks and realists in the administration of President George W. Bush shifted decisively in favor of the latter.

That shift, which could still be reversed by events or actors not subject to Washington’s direct control, can be credited in part to the manifest failures of policies – particularly in Iraq, elsewhere in the Middle East, and in North Korea – promoted by the coalition of aggressive nationalists, neoconservatives, and Christian Zionists who were empowered by the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

The realist resurgence can also be traced to the rise of specific individuals, who took the place of their discredited predecessors in posts between the beginning of Bush’s second term and the end of 2006 when the most important realist of all – Defense Secretary Robert Gates – replaced Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. [complete article]

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