Bush's best cabinet appointment

TNR relays Robert Gates, who is please recall the successor to Donald Rumsfeld, sounding very much like someone intelligent:

Using his strongest language on the subject [of a preemptive strike on Iran] to date, Gates told a group of Marine Corps students that a strike would probably delay Tehran's nuclear program from one to three years. A strike, however, would unify Iran, "cement their determination to have a nuclear program, and also build into the whole country an undying hatred of whoever hits them," he said.

That's so obvious, I shudder for the country where that is actually news.