Former US Defense Sec Robert Gates: Says Vice President Biden Was "Wrong" About Almost "Everything" But He's Absolutely Wrong On Iraqi Opinion of US

Robert Gates Duty Spoof - Doody
(Illustration by jfxgillis)

By Ronald David Jackson
Former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates was on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight to hawk his new book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War," when he suggested that most Iraqis have a favorable opinion of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq: "for most Iraqis, life is in fact significantly better than under Sadam Hussein."

While with Piers Morgan, Gates almost gloated about how consistently "wrong" Vice President Joe Biden has been regarding foreign policy. Yet Gates doesn't seem to have the slightest idea of what he is talking about on the issue of Iraqi views, which calls into question his book, his opinions, and his leadership as Defense Secretary. 

What Iraqis Think:
United States "Broke It" But Didn't Fix It

"If you break it you own it."
General Colin Powell,
warning regarding the invasion of Iraq.

What do the Iraqis themselves think about Iraq after the US invasion? They are not very happy, according to the findings of opinion polls.

According to a Gallup Poll published in March of 2011, Iraqis say security is better as a result of US withdrawal. That is, Iraqis believed the presence of the United States was causing conflict, not reducing it. More than four in five "perceived security to have been positively impacted by the U.S. departure." A poll published by Zogby Research Services in December of 2011 showed that only 30% of Iraqis believed Iraq is "better off" as a result of the US invasion.

In fact, the only segment of Iraqi public opinion that considers itself better off after the US intervention are the Kurds, who gained more independence as Iraq has further splintered into three segments: Shia, Sunni and Kurd.


The Number One Menace for Arabs:
The United States and Israel


Poll after poll has demonstrated that Arabs "on the street" have considered Israel and the United States the Number One threat through the years. Which makes sense given the number of Arab countries the US and Israel has bombed, invaded, and helped to overthrow.

"Shock and Awe" is what the US war planners called the amazing military spectacle
it organized for the world and Sadam's Iraq. Iraq's eight-year war with Iran (assisted
and backed by the US) was costly but it didn't blast Iraq to pieces like the US invasion
did. The "Shock and Awe" PR campaign would find its way into US marketing lore.
(Top and middle: Screen captures from CNN video, March 21, 2003; Bottom: Photo by
Epic Fireworks)

A 2010 survey of Arabs in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates conducted by the University of Maryland in conjunction with Zogby International shows that the "biggest threat" is considered to be Israel (88% thought so), followed by the US, and last was the Persian, Shia, "atomic bomb developing" Iran (10%).

Views of the United States overall were consistently dismal. Over a three-year period, less than 5% of Arabs had a "very favorably" opinion of the US. Whereas opinions of "very unfavorable" were as high as 64% in 2008 and almost half (47%) in 2010, after two years of the Obama Administration.


Robert Gates Doesn't Know Diddly
About What Arabs Think

Arab Opinion hasn't changed.  In a more recent poll released in June 2013, 73% said that Israel (52%) and the US (21%) "presented the largest threats to Arab national security."  Only 6% believed Iran was the "single biggest threat" to Arab national security.

In other words, even though Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spent most of the past twenty years invading, bombing, and helping to overthrow one Arab country after another, he doesn't have the slightest idea of what Arabs themselves think. 

In fact, one could argue that the only "friends" the United States has in the Middle East are the tyrants it has installed and/or helped to prop up over the past several dozen years, namely the cabal of oil rich dictators (including Saudi Arabia) or family-based tyrannies (like Jordan) and then there's Israel.

Perhaps if people like Robert Gates had taken Vice President Biden's advice through the years about avoiding additional wars and invasions in the Middle East, Arabs "on the street" there wouldn't loath the United States while giving little thought to Iran.