Response to Gates reading

In the two opening paragraphs of this article, Defense Secretary Gates is quoted as saying, "We cannot kill or capture our way to victory...", and he argues that military action should only be taken after political or economic efforts have been taken. This idea somewhat surprises and confuses me, because especially in the current war in Iraq, military action has been presented, or at least I have seen it as, political and economical itself. Separating military action and political or economic action seems like an idealized scenario, but one that would be nearly impossible to achieve and certainly not what we are doing now. Every war inevitably involves economics or politics, so to try to separate military action from economics and politics is impossible; if there were not economic or political problems, we would not need military forces. The very fact that the US Military is involved means that there are economic and political issues that could not be addressed otherwise (theoretically). Gates warns that we should not use military forces to "undermine extremism", but again 'extremism' is a political term itself, and the current war in Iraq is based on fundamental political and ideological differences, so to try to separate military action and the politics behind it seems like a sneaky way for a government to hide its motives. I also wonder what kind of economic or political efforts Gates would recommend using in lieu of military action, especially considering how fast the US went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.