"The product of an independent Task Force chaired by Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser,"
There's the money sentence right there. What does this clown know about successful relations with Iran? And who the Hell is the Council on Foreign Relations to give us advice, anyway? It's a home for failed diplomats.
this just somewhat confirms my concerns expressed on the other thread about Gates' nomination:
Two things bother me about this nomination:
1. He's a career CIA bureaucrat
2. (quoted from Wiki): "In 1996, his memoirs were published under the title From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War."
I have a deep suspicion of careerists in general: always looking for the massage, never ruffling feathers, the first principle is CYA at CIA. Of course, he could be an exception, but the civilian head of an agency with hundreds of billions of dollars to spend wisely or blow and the lives of Americans hanging in the balance is something I wouldn't gamble on. Right or Wrong, you know Rumsfeld didn't give a crap about all the bureaucratic CYA BS.
Regarding the book, let me say, I have not read it. It may have a good reason for the title which attributes victory in the cold war to 5 presidents. It sounds to me like a liberal way of diminishing Reagan's overwhelmingly important role in winning the cold war, while the other presidents, starting with Truman were placeholders at best.
I'm going to look for blurbs from the book and reviews and report back if there's anything worth mentioning.