of patience on multiple fronts, but most of all people blithely talking about the use of military force as though it were some kind of video game." White House staff, said Gates, were "talking about military options with the President without Defense being involved."

He even said that Hillary Clinton and Obama both admitted that when they were in the Senate and opposed the Iraq "surge," they did so for political, not technical, reasons. Gates was shocked that they so candidly admitted it during a meeting he attended: "Hillary told the president that her opposition to the (2007) surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary. ... The President conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hearthe two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying."

Gates dismissed the then-pending Iran nuclear deal as a "hope" that Gates called "unrealistic": "The pursuit of the agreement is based on the President's hope that over a 10-year period with the sanctions being lifted that the Iranians will become a constructive stakeholder. ... That as their economy begins to grow again ... they will abandon their ideology, their theology, their revolutionary principles, their meddling in various parts of the region. And frankly, I believe that's very unrealistic."

Speaking of dysfunction, Obama's secretary of Defense No. 3, Chuck Hagel, said the Obama White House tried to "destroy" him even after he submitted his resignation, with some administration officials maligning him in