U.S. President George Bush has found himself as the target for the Republicans’ criticism. The losing side-the Republicans-say: “If the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield was clear two weeks before the elections, then why didn’t he resign before that?” (Bush said this during a press conference). If Bush were to remove Rumsfield during the pre-election campaign, it’s quite possible that Bush and the Republicans would save themselves from the increasing criticisms of Americans and the Democrats. That way, it would be possible to build the propaganda not by self-defenses and justification, but rather by talking about the new strategies for the Iraq war. Perhaps the Republicans wouldn’t lose the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The White House gave a short response to this: “Rumsfield’s resignation is not an internal affair, rather it had to do with U.S. security and that couldn’t have been a result of the short-term, pre-election campaign. The deadlines had nothing to do with the elections.” However, according to experts, Rumsfield’s resignation was due to the results of the elections. What’s more the appointing of the new defense secretary shows the attitude of Bush’s administration.
Everyone knows that Bush appointed Rumsfield as Defense Secretary on purpose to go against his father-the senior Bush. Back in 1988, some Republicans were advising then president Ronald Reagan to consider Donald Rumsfield as the next president. However, Ronald chose the senior Bush. Ten years later, in 1998, by appointing his competitor Rumsfield as defense secretary, junior Bush wished to show that he is not dependent on his father. On the other hand, according to the White House representatives who have been at the White House for a while, say that whenever junior Bush has problems, he asks his “daddy” for help. In this case, that’s why Robert Gates was appointed as the new defense secretary. Gates was from senior Bush’s administration and his close friend. Robert Gates is already considered as “not the defense secretary, rather the Minister of Iraq”. He is going to be defense secretary for a maximum of two years. It’s impossible to make reforms at the Pentagon during that period and nobody expects anything from him. They expect to see him take a new course for Iraq. It’s quite possible that Gates will try to make less expenses and lose less. There will be new approaches in the Middle East, especially what with the Iranian issue.
Two years ago, Robert Gates and adviser to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on security Zbigneyev Bzezhinski had prepared a special report entitled “Iran: time for new approaches”, where they called on Washington to lead direct and continuous negotiations with Tehran. This “negotiating” approach can become dominant in Syria’s case. This is the approach used in the nuclear negotiations with South Korea. OF course, Washington refused to negotiate with that country, however it did agree with leading multi-sided negotiations (better yet six-sided negotiations).
Currently, the most frequently used word in American political “jargon” is double-party. The public expects to see the collaboration of the two parties during the course of the next two years. Despite the fact that the Democrats are the most ready to take on the challenge of the Iraq issue, they have already announced that the U.S. forces will be dislocated from Iraq no sooner than late 2008.
P.S. Recent U.S. surveys show that most Americans considers George Bush as a “lame duck”, which means “unsuccessful”, “bankrupt” and “damaged aircraft”. “Damaged aircraft” is used in the aviation field. The literal translation of “lame duck” is “duck that can’t swim”.