Could be right. Although I think the view that we were on the verge of attacking Iran is--in retrospect--wrong.
But even if the author right that Gates stopped a US-Iran war, I think it is way too soon to be celebrating Gates' vision. We might come to regret his purported actions depending on how things work out.
Gates may not have prevented a war with Iran as much as he delayed it until we both have nuclear weapons.
UPDATE: Oh, and as a further clarification, Iran actually continues to wage war on us:
Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials, in a bid to accelerate the U.S. withdrawals from these countries.
I think a quarter of our casualties in Iraq can be traced to Iranian support for their Shia proxies in Iraq.
So Gates may only have delayed our participation in the war until Iran has nuclear weapons.
