Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says that a US military strike against Syria would be like “throwing gasoline on an extremely complex fire in the Middle East.”\n<\/p>\n
Gates, who was speaking at a forum in Dallas on Tuesday, also hinted that Washington™s past military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya showed that military action can lead to unintended consequences.\n<\/p>\n
A proposal by Russia to put Syria™s chemical weapons under international control has so far stopped US military strikes against the country.\n<\/p>\n
The Syrian government was accused for a chemical attack near Damascus on August 21. Russia says that the foreign-backed militants staged the attack to incriminate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.\n<\/p>\n
Gates dismissed attacking Syria to enforce a œred line” by President Barack Obama, the Associated Press reported.\n<\/p>\n
“I believe to blow a bunch of stuff up over a couple of days to underscore or validate a point or principle is not a strategy,” said Gates, who also served as director of the CIA under George H.W. Bush.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The former official, who was Pentagon™s chief under Obama and former president George W. Bush, said he thought the country™s most recent presidents “have become too quick to reach for a gun to solve an international problem.”<\/p>\n
He also suggested that President Obama to covertly send weapons to “selected rebel groups” in Syria.\n<\/p>\n
According to Gates, the United States should also push for Assad to be labeled a war criminal, for warrants to be issued for his arrest and for a seizure of his family’s assets abroad.\n<\/p>\n
About US negotiations with Russia over Syria™s chemical weapons, Gates said the US should push for more authority and strict demands on complying with any terms of an agreement.\n<\/p>\n
When asked whether he trusted Russian President Vladimir Putin, Gates said: “My answer would be, are you kidding me?”\n<\/p>\n
AGB\/AGB<\/p>\n