US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s dismissal has been in the spotlight for two days now; the Pentagon chief’s career was in fact used as a bargaining chip in the White House’s political games with the Democrats, voters and its NATO allies. Even though President George Bush Jr. took all the heat for his party’s failure at the recent midterm elections to the Congress and Senate, but it was the defense chief who actually paid for all the US domestic and foreign-political blunders.

Many Americans-on-the-street now blame recent failures of the US army in Iraq on the Pentagon chief’s ambition to come home with victory at any rate. Experts shrewdly suggest that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney play the leading role in shaping Washington’s aggressive but helpless policy in the Middle East and Central Asia. Malicious tongues even claim they are the ones who really run the White House, dubbing them “hawks” and the “cold war heritage”.

In any case Donald Rumsfeld remains a prominent figure in the modern history of the United States, and his departure from the political arena deserves all the attention given to it by the international mass media. It is worth mentioning here that the very fact of the defense secretary’s resignation deflated all the myths about him created both in the United States and in the world. This political heavyweight was apparently not strong enough, if he let himself go through the humiliating resignation procedure.

Admittedly, Rumsfeld himself now claims he stepped down of his own accord, and it was a conscious political decision. True, President Bush assures the nation that the Pentagon chief’s resignation had been discussed before the unfortunate midterm congressional election. All this is simply rhetoric typical of the US political system. The president praises Rumsfeld calling him a “tough act to follow,” saying he’s “deeply grateful” for his service to the country. The truth is that the ill-fated defense secretary was simply chosen as a scapegoat to bear the huge personal responsibility for a full six years’ worth of blunders and fiascoes of “all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.” The president always remains impeccable – it is an axiom of the US political culture.

That Iraq has turned into President Bush’s Golgotha, is clear to everyone today. Rumsfeld is certainly not the only one to blame for this new American tragedy. American Studies experts had said even before the invasion of Iraq, that the campaign was promoted by the oil lobby and had nothing to do with “anti-terrorist efforts” and “triumph of democracy.” George Bush’s team, closely linked with Texan oil companies, had long leered at rich oil fields of the Gulf. Iraq’s oil is the root of all evil and the “causa causans” of what’s happening today. If we add together the oil lobby and the interests of American arms producers and Pentagon contractors, the jig-saw pieces fit together to reveal the true picture.

To make the tangled plot even more convincing, we might also recall the “democratic empire,” a US political elite’s obsessive dream, or "Pax Americana" – the idea of a new world order, and America’s “missionary role” theory. Adding the general ignorance and overconfidence of the Americans en masse to this “cocktail,” one can compile the true portrait of modern America, which is alone to blame for many of its recent failures. As for Rumsfeld, he simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Having led “Bush’s war” in Iraq for three years, a very personal war as they say, he lost it even before the final combat, falling victim to political intrigue.

Maybe Rumsfeld will soon write memoirs to describe his war; maybe he will even disclose the true role of Bush the “Crusader,” who is often portrayed today as a helpless loser and a puppet manipulated by Cheney. But it is not true, Bush says, and his friends-opponents, like ex-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, confirm. George Bush Jr. has long been a politician; he knows from the entire human history that a king is made by his entourage. The president’s entourage will always welcome Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and [Condoleezza] Rice, provided they share the “king’s” interests and know their place.

Therefore, NATO advocates in Georgia and Ukraine needn’t lament Ramsfeld’s departure, expecting the rules of the game changed and the financing from Washington cut off. Nothing will change at all, because Rumsfeld’s successor, Bob Gates, is a member of President Bush’s team and a Bush “family friend,” a man of office, who had learned political survival at the CIA.