Gates on GOP prez field: 'We really are in trouble'

NEW YORK -- Robert Gates, Republican national security luminary and former defense secretary, excoriated GOP presidential frontrunners this week for foreign policy positions he said were detached from reality, singling out the hyper-bellicose rhetoric of real estate developer and reality television personality Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for particular scorn.

"I think middle school kids would be embarrassed by the level of dialogue going on in the national campaign about how we deal with the problems that we are facing," Gates said Jan. 20 during remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. "I think these men and women are making these broad pronouncements; they clearly don't know what they're talking about."

Without naming names, the former defense secretary alluded to statements by the current leaders in the GOP nomination race about how both would deal with ISIL in Syria and Iraq if elected president, including Trump's Nov. 12 assertion in Fort Dodge, IA, that "I would bomb the shit out of them; I would just bomb those suckers," and Cruz's Dec. 5 pledge to "carpet-bomb [ISIL] into oblivion; I don't know if sand can glow in the dark, but we're going to find out."

"This is not a particularly sophisticated level of analysis of the challenges that we face," said Gates. "The thing that I find disappointing -- and I realize that politicians have to put spin on things -- they do a disservice in not being honest with the American people, that taking on a problem like ISIS, and the extremism associated with ISIS, is complex, it is going to be hard and it's going to take a lot of time. And it is going to take some sacrifice."

"And there are no easy solutions," said Gates, who served as defense secretary from 2006 to 2011, spanning the second George W. Bush administration and Barack Obama's first term. "And there certainly are no quick solutions. Now, the worrying thing is they actually believe what they're saying. And if that's the case, we really are in trouble. So, we're in the situation where the optimistic interpretation is: they're just being cynical and opportunistic."

Gates was speaking as part of a publicity tour to promote his latest book, "A Passion for Leadership."