General Fallon resigns as Mideast military chief over opposition to Bush Iran policy Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Why does this come as no surprise?! First strike, indeed...

Indeed. Welcome back Magmak1.

Fallon Resigns As Mideast Military Chief
By ROBERT BURNS – 5 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy admiral in charge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan announced Tuesday that he is resigning over press reports portraying him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy.

Adm. William J. Fallon, one of the most experienced officers in the U.S. military, said the reports were wrong but had become a distraction hampering his efforts in the Middle East. Fallon's area of responsibility includes Iran and stretches from Central Asia across the Middle East to the Horn of Africa.

"I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility," Fallon said, and he regretted "the simple perception that there is." He was in Iraq when he made the statement.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Pentagon news conference that he accepted Fallon's request to resign and retire from the Navy, agreeing that the Iran issue had become a distraction. But Gates said repeatedly that he believed talk of Fallon opposing Bush on Iran was mistaken.

"I don't think that there really were differences at all," Gates said, adding that Fallon was not pressured to leave.

"He told me that, quote, 'The current embarrassing situation, public perception of differences between my views and administration policy, and the distraction this causes from the mission make this the right thing to do,' unquote," Gates told reporters.

Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as at odds with a president eager to go to war with Iran. Titled "The Man Between War and Peace," it described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Gates said he did not think it was that article alone that prompted Fallon to quit. Rather, Gates thought it was "a cumulative kind of thing" that he and Fallon had failed to put "behind us."

It is highly unusual for a senior commander to resign in wartime. Fallon took the post on March 16, 2007, succeeding Army Gen. John Abizaid, who retired after nearly four years in the job. Fallon was part of a new team of senior officials, including Gates, chosen by Bush to implement a revised Iraq war policy.

Fallon's departure, effective March 31, is unlikely to have an immediate effect on conducting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. His top deputy at Central Command, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, will take his place until a permanent successor is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Gen. David Petraeus, who runs the Iraq war from Baghdad but is technically subordinate to Fallon, was known to have differences with Fallon over the timing and pace of drawing down U.S. troops from Iraq. Fallon has favored a faster pullback.

Petraeus issued a statement lauding Fallon's service. "Over the past year, he and I worked closely together as we charted a new course in Iraq and, more recently, developed a shared view on recommendations for the future," Petraeus said.

Petraeus might be considered a candidate to succeed Fallon, although Gates said recently that Bush had made it clear to him that he wanted to keep Petraeus in Iraq until late this year. Petraeus is likely to get a second four-star assignment, and some believe it might be as the top U.S. commander in Europe.

Some Democrats in Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, seized on Fallon's resignation to assert that it reflected an effort by the Bush administration to stifle dissenting opinion.

"I am concerned that the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and a military leader with more than three decades of command experience, is yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts' views are not welcomed in this administration," Reid said.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the White House played no role in Fallon's move.

"People should not misconstrue this as the price to be paid for speaking out within the Pentagon," Morrell said. "This is not indicative of a hostile environment toward free thinking. This is indicative of what sadly became a perception problem that dogged Admiral Fallon — this perception that he was in a different place than the president and the administration when it came to Iran."

President Bush praised Fallon in a statement. "During his tenure at Centcom, Admiral Fallon's job has been to help ensure that America's military forces are ready to meet the threats of an often-troubled region of the world, and he deserves considerable credit for progress that has been made there, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan," Bush said.

Gates dismissed as "ridiculous" any notion that Fallon's departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. Pressed on that point, he said, "As I say, the notion that this decision portends anything in terms of a change in Iran policy is, to quote myself, ridiculous."

Morrell said it was too early to speculate on a successor to Fallon, who was a surprise choice for the job when Gates selected him on Jan. 5, 2007, calling him a great strategic thinker and innovator. The post had never before been held by a Navy admiral.

Dempsey could be elevated to Central Command chief, although he already has been selected to head U.S. Army Europe. Another possible candidates for the Central Command post — considered one of the most important in the U.S. military — is Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who had just been named to a top post on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and who had been commander of U.S. special operations forces in Iraq.

Another possibility is Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who serves as Gates' senior military assistant and is a former senior commander in Iraq.

Fallon, 63, a veteran of the Vietnam War and a former vice chief of naval operations, has had a 41-year Navy career. He received his commission through the Navy ROTC program at Villanova University in 1967. Before taking the Central Command job he was commander of U.S. Pacific Command.

Wouldn't he make an interesting VP for Obama?

The Nelson Report on the Fallon Firing

Here is The Nelson Report's take on CENTCOM Commander William Fallon's resignation dismissal:

The Nelson Report - 12 March 2008 FALLON FIRED...insubordination, not Iran war risk

FALLON...the speed with which Adm. Fallon's "retirement" was announced by DOD Secretary Gates tells you the real story: this came right from the White House.

That's the view of observers on Capitol Hill and in the defense community, following today's stunning announcement from Baghdad.

If you want to know why, the answer comes in the form of the question on many lips when the news broke..."did he speak out against war with Iran because he fears the President may actually order an attack this year?"

The pending mission to the Middle East next week by Vice President Cheney, the presumed "Darth Vader" of most of the "Iran war" conspiracy theories, only added fuel to the firestorm of questions about why Fallon shot his mouth in Esquire Magazine.

As we said in the Summary, the answer is "no, Fallon didn't fear that Bush was about to go to war with Iran".

And sources close to senior Administration decision-makers reinforce this conclusion, one saying "there is absolutely no chance of war with Iran, so far as the US is concerned."

(What Israel might at some point do, it was conceded, could be another matter...)

Still, basically, if the above interpretation of Bush's real intentions is the case, Fallon was fired for hubris which amounted to insubordination, Congressional and other sources feel.

It is both understandable and justifiable, given the chain of command and civilian control ethos of the US military.

Any administration, and not just Bush and Gates, would rapidly conclude that they could not tolerate having their hand-picked commander for Iraq and Afghanistan seeming to take on responsibility for deciding whether to go to war with Iran (or any other country), in an interview which appeared last week in Esquire Magazine.

Interestingly, in this time of instant world-wide communication, it took a few days for the Esquire piece to reach critical mass attention. Some observers feel it wasn't until Egyptian press picked it up and made a big deal that it reached the Bush/Gates level, after which "something had to be done".

I concur with Chris Nelson's assessment.

-- Steve Clemons

Admiral William "Fox" Fallon -- CentCom Commander -- has been fired for insubordination, for not stewarding his own views about war and peace privately and in a way that did not embarrass his commander in chief.

By numerous accounts, President Bush was absolutely enraged by an Esquire article -- since amended noting Fallon's demise -- that posited that Admiral Fallon was not on the same page as President Bush and that he was the single military man standing between war and peace.

Rumors are running rampant now in the aftermath of Fallon's resignation today that Bush called a war room gathering on Saturday this past weekend -- and launched plans to hatch a strike of some sort on Iran this spring. Internet bulletin boards, listserves, and chatter among many on the left and the right are hyperventilating (and some excited) about the prospects of a hot conflict with Iran.

My sources in the intelligence arena, in various command staff operations, near Defense Secretary Gates, and even in the White House tell me that nothing structural has changed in America's stance towards Iran. The US is still engaged in an effort to get Iran to the negotiating table if it stops its nuclear enrichment activities. It is continuing to apply UN sanctions pressure via unanimous consent of the UN Security Council to bring Iran into compliance with international obligations. And as Bush, Gates and others have said -- other options can be on the table.

But the diplomatic course is still dominant and preferred -- and there has been no decision to launch a war despite the opportunistic bravado that will no doubt soon be uttered by Vice President Cheney, John Bolton, Richard Perle and others who have long pined for a conflict with Iran's mullahs.

But the pieces are not there to support a full conflict with Iran, or even a near term military strike. That is not where Bush is headed -- but he felt he needed to remove someone who was undermining his authority and direction.

As one source told me shortly ago, "if there was a real chance we were flipping into war mode, there would be six Fallons commenting -- and six fired."

This source said "Fallon's real mistake was going public with what was common banter among many of the senior military officials about America's engagement in the Middle East and with Iran. His views are not atypical -- no matter what the Esquire article asserts -- but he made the mistake of being publicly vain and indulgent about his own take on this."

From my reading of the situation, Bush had to fire Fallon for his comments. I admire Fallon's sense of America's strategic situation -- but the sad thing about this incident is that the combined efforts of Gates, Rice, Hayden, McConnell and others to bring a new direction to America's national security course had worked. Bush had bought in. Fallon had to brag about it -- and that was a mistake.

-- Steve Clemons

<h2 class="title">CentCom Chief Admiral Fallon Resigns </h2> Secretary Robert Gates has announced that Centcom commander Adm. William Fallon has submitted his resignation. Fallon was subject of a recent Esquire article, which stated that the admiral could be “relieved of his command before his time is up next spring,” in favor of a commander more amenable to war with Iran.

According to Gates, Fallon resigned because the fall-out from the article. Gates said Fallon told him: “The current embarrassing situation, public perception of differences between my views and administration policy, and the distraction this causes from the mission make this the right thing to do.” Gates said he approved Fallon’s request to retire with “reluctance and regret.” Watch it:

var flvfallonresign32024020216 = new SWFObject('/wp-content/plugins/flvplayer.swf?file=http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/03/fallonresign.320.240.flv&autoStart=false', 'em-flvfallonresign32024020216', '320', '260', '6', '#ffffff'); flvfallonresign32024020216.addParam('quality', 'high'); flvfallonresign32024020216.addParam('wmode', 'transparent'); flvfallonresign32024020216.write('flvfallonresign32024020216'); Last week, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino downplayed Fallon’s possible retirement, decrying “rumor mills that don’t turn out to be true.”

Fallon opposed the “surge” in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials’ warmongering rhetoric “not helpful.” He rejected the praise in the Esquire piece, calling it “poison pen stuff.”

A reporter noted to Gates there was a “line in that Esquire story that said basically if Fallon gets fired, it means we’re going to war with Iran. Can you just address that?” Gates responded, “Well that’s just ridiculous.”

UPDATE: Sources at the Pentagon said that Fallon was worried the White House would “perceive the magazine piece as a challenge to the president’s authority, and insisted that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

UPDATE II: Last year, Fallon vowed that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.”

UPDATE III: TPM has Fallon’s statement here. The Agonist also has more.

UPDATE IV: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has issued this statement:

I am concerned that the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and a military leader with more than three decades of command experience, is yet another example that independence and the frank, open airing of experts’ views are not welcomed in this Administration.

UPDATE V: Spencer Ackerman writes:

Gates said in a press conference just now that no one should think the move reflects any substantive change in policy. That sure won’t be how Teheran sees it. The Iranians will consider Fallon’s resignation to indicate that the bombing begins in the next five minutes.

UPDATE VI: The National Security Network compiles examples of Fallon’s dissenting views from the Bush administration.

• 
  Listen to the Top Brass
  
  Don’t Make Them Quit Early
  The abrupt retirement of top U.S. commander in the Middle East speaks volumes about wrong-headed White House policy, writes Lawrence Korb.

Fox' Fallon Fired
And we're f*cked… by Justin Raimondo "If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran," says the March Esquire, "it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man." The piece describes this top military figure as the last obstacle to the Bush administration's persistent push for war with Iran: "It's left to" him and him "alone … to argue that, as he told al-Jazeera last fall: 'This constant drumbeat of conflict … is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working [for].'"

That was Adm. William "Fox" Fallon speaking, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, last of the Vietnam vets in the high command, and, yes, the very same Adm. Fallon who has just submitted his resignation as head of Central Command. What makes this particularly ominous is that, according to former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst Patrick Lang, Fallon told him, upon taking over at Centcom, that war with Iran "isn't going to happen on my watch." Lang asked him how he thought he could stop it: "'I have options, you know,' Fallon responded, which Lang interpreted as implying Fallon would step down rather than follow orders he considers mistaken."

Do I really need to draw you a picture to get you to imagine what's coming next? This is as clear a signal as any that the Bush administration intends to go out with a bang – one that will shake not only the Middle East but this country to its very foundations.

In a statement, Fallon hinted at the reason for his resignation:

"Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region. And although I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command Area of Responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America's interests there."

What "efforts" is he hampering but the effort to drag us into another war?

Fallon has long been a thorn in the administration's side: while in Egypt, on a tour of his Centcom command, he assured President Hosni Mubarak that there would be no attack on Iran, which leaked to the Egyptian media. Washington was livid. "I'm in hot water, again," he confided to Thomas P.M. Barnett, the Esquire journalist who accompanied him on his trip.

He's been in hot water with administration hawks – including the president, wildest hawk of them all – before. Last fall, he was quoted by Pentagon insiders as calling Gen. David Petraeus an "ass-kissing little chickensh*t" for telling the president what he wanted to hear on Iraq and the "surge." Long an advocate of engagement with China as well as Iran, Fallon has been relentlessly attacked by the neocons as "soft and accommodating." After Fallon began reaching out to the Chinese, the response was delayed but vehement – and telling – when it came:

"It was only after the Pentagon and Congress started realizing that their favorite 'programs of record' (i.e., weapons systems and major vehicle platforms) were threatened by such talks that the sh*t hit the fan. 'I blew my stack,' Fallon says. 'I told Rumsfeld, Just look at this sh*t. I go up to the Hill and I get three or four guys grabbing me and jerking me out of the aisle, all because somebody came up and told them that the sky was going to cave in.'"

The military-industrial-neocon complex, as it were, has been working overtime to get him out of the way of their war plans, and this week they finally succeeded. Not that Fallon is all that surprised, I'll bet. Speaking freely to Barnett, he telegraphed his resignation:

"Sitting in his Tampa headquarters office last fall, I asked Fallon if he considered the Centcom assignment to be the same career-capping job that it'd been for his predecessors. He just laughed and said, 'Career capping? How about career detonating?'"

It's a detonation that will reverberate throughout the Middle East, prefiguring the mega-explosion to come. One can hardly imagine a clearer indication that the White House has made the decision to go to war with Iran . It's just a matter of when and how the administration can provoke an incident.

That's why U.S. warships are patrolling the Lebanese coast; and why our warships are playing hide-and-go-seek with Iranian gunboats in the Gulf. It's the reason the Israel lobby has been beating the tom-toms for war, and the reason the anti-Fallon, Petraeus, has been so vocal about the Iranian roots of our Iraqi problem. With Fallon out of the way, the road to war – a regional conflagration that will make the invasion of Iraq seem like a holiday picnic – is cleared. Get ready for World War III.

Responding to the spectacle of a failing presidential candidate offering the front-runner the second spot on the ticket, Barack Obama didn't confine himself to mocking Hillary's presumptuousness; he also attacked her judgment and specifically her foreign policy. He coupled a dig at her vote to approve the conquest of Iraq with her support for the Lobby's resolution, championed by Joe Lieberman, to target Iran's Republican Guard as a "terrorist group," which he characterized as "saber-rattling." The Lieberman resolution was clearly meant to give legal cover to the Bush administration if and when they order U.S. troops in Iraq to cross the border into Iran in hot pursuit of "terrorists," i.e., the Iranian military.

We know, when push comes to shove, where Hillary stands on this. Obama's stance is less clear. We know he won't rule out military action against Iran, as he told the Chicago Tribune, yet his recent pronouncements – "I won't be browbeaten into launching a war that was not necessary," he said of the Clinton 3-in-the-morning attack ad – indicate opposition to the War Party's Iran project. If Obama is smart, he'll launch a preemptive strike against the idea of going to war with the Iranians – before the president acts.

The antiwar movement had better get off its big, fat butt. If ever there was a time to step up to the plate, it is now. The firing of Fallon – clearly he was pressured to step down – raises the stakes considerably: it means the odds are we'll be at war just as the presidential campaign season reaches a dramatic crescendo on the Democratic side of the ledger, and at the moment Republican candidates for Congress begin to campaign in earnest. The antiwar movement can have an effect on the course of events, and, God willing, head Bush off at the pass, but only if we hit key pressure points on the body politic – Congress, and Obama-for-President headquarters.

Don't bother with Hillary. She's hopeless on this issue and all other foreign policy questions. She votes, talks, and acts in concert with the Lobby, and we can count on her for one thing and one thing only: using this crisis to catapult herself and her circle into power.

As for Obama – he is with us, instinctively, but he may shy away from taking a more definitive stand on account of bad advisers, and, perhaps, a fear of going out on a rather creaky and insubstantial political limb. The Lobby, after all, is not inclined to support him, and will go all out against him if he gets in its way. Obama needs to know that if he stands up to the War Party, the people are with him.

After calling your congressional representatives and asking them what they intend to do to stop this madness, call Obama's Senate office. Be polite, be clear, and be brief. Let them know how you feel about the prospect of war with Iran, and tell them it's time for Obama to speak out loud and clear: (202) 224-2854.

~ Justin Raimondo

Dissenting Views Made Fallon's Fall Inevitable
by Gareth Porter Adm. William Fallon's request to quit his position as head of the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) and to retire from the military was apparently the result of a George W. Bush administration decision to pressure him to resign.

Announcing the resignation, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he believed it was "the right thing to do," thus indicating the administration wanted it.

On Monday, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell, asked whether Gates still had full confidence in Fallon, would only say that Fallon "still enjoys a working – a good working relationship with the secretary of defense," and then added, "Admiral Fallon serves at the pleasure of the president."

The resignation came a few days after the publication of an Esquire magazine article profiling Fallon in which he was described as being "in hot water" with the White House and justified public comments departing from the Bush administration's policy toward Iran. The publicity that followed the article accelerated the pressure on Fallon to resign.

But Fallon almost certainly knew that he would be fired when he agreed to cooperate with the Esquire magazine profile in late 2006.

On Tuesday, Fallon issued a statement saying, "Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region."

The resignation brings to an end a year, during which time Fallon clashed with the White House over policy toward Iran and with Gen. David Petraeus and the White House over whether Iraq should continue to be given priority over Afghanistan and Pakistan in U.S. policy.

Fallon's greatest concern appears to have been preventing war with Iran. He was one of a group of senior military officers, apparently including most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were alarmed in late 2006 and early 2007 by indications that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were contemplating a possible attack on Iran.

Gates chose Fallon to replace Gen. John P. Abizaid as Centcom chief shortly after a Dec. 13, 2006, meeting between Bush and the Joint Chiefs at which Bush reportedly asked their views on a possible strike against Iran.

Col. W. Patrick Lang, a former intelligence officer on the Middle East for the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post last week that Fallon had said privately at the time of his confirmation that an attack on Iran "isn't going to happen on my watch." When asked how he could avoid such a conflict, Fallon reportedly responded, "I have options, you know." Lang said he interpreted that comment as implying Fallon would step down rather than follow orders to carry out such an attack.

As IPS reported last May, Fallon was also quoted as saying privately at that time, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box." That was an apparent reference to the opposition by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to an aggressive war against Iran.

Even before assuming his new post at Centcom, Fallon expressed strong opposition in mid-February to a proposal for sending a third U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, to overlap with two other carriers, according to knowledgeable sources. The addition of a third carrier was to part of a broader strategy then being discussed at the Pentagon to intimidate Iran by making a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.

The plan for a third carrier task force in the Gulf was dropped after Fallon made his views known.

Fallon reportedly made his opposition to a strike against Iran known to the White House early on in his tenure, and his role as Centcom commander would have made it very difficult for the Bush administration to carry out a strike against Iran, because he controlled all ground, air, and naval military access to the region.

But Fallon's role in regional diplomacy proved to be an even greater source of friction with the White House than his position on military policy toward Iran. Personal relations with military and political leaders in the Middle East had already become nearly as important as military planning under Fallon's predecessors at Centcom.

Fallon clearly relished his diplomatic role and did not hesitate to express views on diplomacy that were at odds with those of the administration. Last summer, as Dick Cheney was maneuvering within the administration to shift U.S. policy toward an attack on bases in Iran allegedly connected to anti-U.S. Shi'ite forces in Iraq, Fallon declared in an interview, "We have to figure out a way to come to an arrangement" with Iran.

When Sunni Arab regimes in the Middle East became alarmed about the possibility of a U.S. war with Iran, Fallon made statements on three occasions in September and November ruling out a U.S. attack on Iran. Those statements contradicted the Bush administration's policy of keeping the military option "on the table" and soured relations with the White House.

Fallon also antagonized administration officials by pushing for a faster exit from Iraq than the White House and Gen. Petraeus wanted. Fallon had a highly publicized personal and policy clash with Petraeus, for whom he reportedly expressed a visceral dislike. Sources familiar with reports of his meetings with Petraeus in Baghdad last March told IPS last spring that he called him an "ass-kissing little chickens**t" in their first meeting.

Fallon later denied that he had used such language, suggesting to Esquire that the sources of the report were probably army officers who were indulging in inter-service rivalry with the Navy. In fact, however, the sources of the report were supporters of Fallon.

Fallon's quarrel with Petraeus was also related to the latter's insistence on keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, even while the NATO position in Afghanistan was growing more tenuous. Fallon was strongly committed to a strategy that gave priority to Afghanistan and Pakistan as the central security challenges to the United States in the Middle East and Asia.

Fallon made his distaste for a long war in Iraq very clear from the beginning. He ordered subordinates to stop using the term "long war," which had been favored by the Bush administration. He was reported to be concerned that the concept would alienate people across the Middle East by suggesting a U.S. intention to maintain troops indefinitely in Muslim countries.

Fallon's policy positions made him unpopular among neoconservative supporters of the administration. One neoconservative pundit, military specialist Max Boot, criticized Fallon last November for his public comment ruling out a strike against Iran and then suggested in January that Petraeus should replace the "unimpressive" Fallon at Centcom.

Fallon was playing a complex political game at Centcom by crossing the White House on the two most politically sensitive issues in Middle East policy. As a veteran bureaucratic infighter, he knew that he was politically vulnerable. Nevertheless, he chose late last year not to lower his profile but to raise it by cooperating fully with the Esquire article.

IPS has learned that Fallon agreed to sit for celebrity photographer Peter Yang at Centcom headquarters in Tampa Dec. 26 for the Esquire spread, despite the near-certainty that it exacerbate his relations with White House. That may have been a signal that he already knew that he would not be able to continue to play the game much longer and was ready to bring his stormy tenure at Centcom to an end.

Fallon Oversaw Iraq, Afghan Wars

Transcript: Gates News Briefing About Fallon Resignation

White House Statement on Fallon Resignation

Fallon Biographical Information

Adm. Fallon Steps Down - New York Post editorial

Fallon Didn't Get It - Max Boot, Los Angeles Times

Fallon: The Man Between War and Peace - Thomas Barnett, Esquire

Bill and Kathy Christison
Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer

Disagreements by Top Military Brass regarding Bush-Cheney War Plans
by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, March 12, 2008


Adm. William Fallon was forced to resign as head of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) over disagreements pertaining to the administration's Iran war plans.

Defense Secretary Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon "had asked for permission to retire" and that Gates had agreed. The fact of the matter is that Admiral Fallon was fired by Defense Secretary Gates. His resignation is effective March 31st.

"Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program."

The article highlighted statements by Admiral Fallon made in a TV interview with the Al Jazeera TV network last Fall, in which he said that:

[a] “constant drumbeat of conflict [from Washington directed at Iran was] not helpful and not useful.... I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for.... We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

In an official statement, Admiral Fallon acknowledged that “recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president’s policy objectives have become a distraction" in his endeavors as head of CENTCOM

CENTCOM is a key regional command in the eventuality of a US sponsored attack on Iran from the Middle East war theater. The adminstration would not be able to wage a major theater war withouth the unbending support of the head of CENTCOM.

Fallon is not a lone voice. Many senior and junior officers support Fallon's position.

This resignation confirms widespread opposition within the US military command to a war with Iran. It also reflects the inability of the administration to acquire the support of the Military High Command despite shuffles and reshuffles in high level military appointments since the departure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. .

Ironically, Admiral Fallon was an unbending supporter of the Bush-Cheney clique. Secretary Gates had appointed Admiral. William J. Fallon, as Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) barely a year ago in March 2007, following the dismissal of Gen. John P. Abizaid, who was pushed into retirement, following apparent disagreements with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

While Abizaid recognized both the failures and the weaknesses of the US military in Iraq, Admiral Fallon at the time of his March 2007 appointment was closely aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney's Iran war plans. He was also firmly committed to the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT).

Fallon's appointment last year also coincided with the replacement of Peter Pace as Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his replacement by Admiral Mullen.

General Pace had indicated his disagreement with the Administration regarding both Iraq and the proposed attacks on Iran.

General Peter Pace's term as Chairman of the JCS ended in September 2007. Defense Secretary Gates' chosen successor as Chairman of the JCS was Admiral Michael Mullen, formerly U.S. Chief of Naval Operations.

Mullen's discourse is in marked contrast to that of General Peter Pace. Mullen, who was in charge of coordinating 2006-2007 naval war games off the Iranian coastline, has expressed an unbending commitment to "waging" and "winning asymmetric wars", while also "protecting the United States":

In June 2007, Secretary of Defense Gates appointed the Commander of USSTRATCOM, General Cartwright to the position of Vice-Chairman of the JCS. Together with the appointment of Admiral Mullen, who took over from Peter Pace in October, these two new appointments imply a significant overhaul in the power structure of the JCS

Warriors welcome resignation
By Sara Carter
Current and former military officials welcomed the resignation of Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, saying he failed to prevent foreign fighters and munitions from entering Iraq.

The Fall of Admiral George B. McFallon
Just posted on THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online is <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/867mreuu.asp?pg=1">an article by Mackubin Thomas Owens about Admiral William "Fox" Fallon and his recent resignation. Owens explains that Fallon's resignation was largely due to a recent Esquire article about Fallon's very public disagreements with the Bush administration over foreign policy. Owens writes:

While reasonable people can disagree over the wisdom of the Bush administration's policy regarding Iraq, the really troubling aspect of this article is that it reveals the extent to which a combatant commander had taken it on himself to develop and disseminate policy independently of the president. This flies in the face of the American practice of civil-military relations, going back to the American Revolution.

He continues that it is

undeniable that as commander of CENTCOM, Fallon acted in a way that exceeded his authority. The tenor of Fallon's public pronouncements was in stark contrast to that of statements made by other high-ranking military officers who, while they have no desire to provoke a war with Iran while the U.S. military is heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, have not taken it upon themselves to constrain American foreign policy to the extent that Fallon has. Indeed, had Fallon not stepped down, the president would have been perfectly justified in firing him, as Abraham Lincoln fired Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, as Franklin Roosevelt fired Rear Admiral James O. Richardson, and Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

Read the whole thing at THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.

Some of The Blog's friends had similar things to say about Fallon. One foreign affairs expert remarked, "That's very thoughtful of Fox Fallon to spare President McCain the necessity of firing him." And what's next for Fallon? Another scholar speculates, "Just think...we now will have the round of Fallon on every talk show possible. He'll make Wes Clark appear shy and retiring is my guess."

Posted by Samantha Sault at 03:45 PM
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp

White House Downplays Rift With Fallon: Admiral In Charge Of U.S. Mideast Command Resigned Amid Alleged Disagreements On Iran

The Fall of Admiral George B. McFallon - Mackubin Owens, Wkly Standard

Fallon's Headstrong Demeanor Costs Him - David Ignatius, Washington Post

<h2 class="title"> Is Petraeus ‘The Man Most Responsible’ For Adm. Fallon’s Resignation? </h2> When Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced CentCom commander Adm. William Fallon’s resignation on Tuesday, he told the press that it was “a cumulative kind of thing,” not “any one issue” that led Fallon to leave his post. According to the New York Times’s Thom Shanker, “premature departure” at least partially “stemmed” from policy disagreements with Gen. David Petraeus, “a favorite of the White House“:

But there was no question that the admiral’s premature departure stemmed from what were perceived to be policy differences with the administration on Iran and Iraq, where his views competed with those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, who is a favorite of the White House.

Writing on the Washington Post’s website today, former intelligence analyst William Arkin posits that Petraeus is “the man most responsible for the departure of Fallon” because “the two were at odds on virtually every element of Iraq policy”:

Yesterday, I was hearing from Pentagon officials, high-ranking military officers and close observers of the building that the two were at odds on virtually every element of Iraq policy, which of course put Fallon on a collision course with the White House. In other words, Iran was the excuse but Iraq was the reason.

Arkin says Fallon believed “that the surge should [be] brought to a quick and successful conclusion.” But Petraeus had the White House, and “Fallon, despite his command and authority to set priorities and decide on what resources are needed, was frozen out.”

Most recently, the two top commanders disputed the length and purpose of the upcoming “pause” in troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer. Fallon thought it should be “temporary and brief” while Petraeus wants “to wait until as late as September to decide when to bring home more troops.”

Slate’s Fred Kaplan writes that Petraeus and Fallon “dislike each other and that their disagreements have been tense, sometimes fierce.” From this, he surmises that “Fallon’s departure” is a “signal that Petraeus has won that contest.”

UPDATE: For more on Fallon’s resignation, check out today’s Progress Report here.

Snuffy, while I was away, you taught those dogs to read, analyze and post?

Fallon’s Fall Is Bad News
As much as I would like to agree with Steve Clemons and Chris Nelson, I think Adm. Fallon’s resignation is very bad news, less because it signals war with Iran, as a few analysts have argued (although it certainly makes war more possible), than it suggests rather strongly that the “realists,” have lost ground in their never-ending war with the hawks in and outside the administration over control of the “global war on terror.” It seems very clear to me, among other things from the comments of Sec. Gates, who leads the realist faction, that the resignation resulted from White House pressure, and that Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mike Mullen, among others, really did not want Fallon to go. For much of the past year, Fallon had acted as their “point man” (in the military sense) in trying to promote a saner strategic policy toward the entire region covered by the Central Command and not one that was so obsessed with achieving “victory” in Iraq (and unmitigated hostility toward Iran). His departure will clearly weaken the realists’ hand in the ongoing battles against the neo-conservatives (who, as I noted most recently in late January, had mounted a mostly under-the-radar campaign to get Fallon relieved of his responsibilities at the earliest possible moment) and other hawks, particularly those most closely associated with Cheney.

Gates insisted that Fallon had “reached this difficult decision entirely on his own,” a somewhat questionable assertion given Fallon’s remarkably strongly worded public rejection of the Esquire profile by Thomas Barnett that most analysts believe was the straw that broke the camel’s back at the White House.

“I believe it was the right thing to to do,” Gates went on, “even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy” (which, of course, raises the question why, if there were indeed no significant differences, they could not be cleared up to everyone’s satisfaction. After all, as the New York Times noted Wednesday, “many of [Fallon’s] public statements have fallen within the range of views expressed by Mr. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen…” I would add that this includes both calming tensions with Iran and pausing only briefly in July before continuing to draw down troops in Iraq to as few as 110,000 by the end of the year.) Gates noted that he accepted Fallon’s resignation “with reluctance and regret” and described him as “enormously talented and very experienced” and as having “a strategic vision that is rare.”

Of course, that strategic vision, which is spelled out at some length in Barnett’s profile, is anathema to the hawks as much as it is ambrosia to the realists. Fallon was already in bad odor with the hawks for his eagerness to engage the Chinese military when he served as the head of the Pacific Command from 2005 to 2007; it was a major bureaucratic coup that Gates and the Pentagon brass prevailed in his transfer to Centcom. That Fallon subsequently argued within administration councils for a similar kind of outreach toward Iran — he pushed hard for an “incidents-at-sea” agreement with Tehran — no doubt only fueled the hawks’ hostility and distrust. But for him to promote the case publicly through Barnett’s article was too much for the White House to bear, particularly when Cheney and others had been complaining for months that Fallon’s repeated declarations against war with Iran had effectively undermined the administration’s insistence that all options for dealing with Tehran remained “on the table.” Fallon’s well-known scepticism about the ultimate success of the “Surge,” his barely concealed contempt for Bush and neo-con hero, Gen. David Petraeus, and his belief — shared by the intelligence community and the Pentagon brass, not to mention Gates himself — that the most threatening “central front” in the war on terror was to be found in Pakistan and Afghanistan, rather than in Iraq and Iran, combined to make him the most vulnerable of the realists to the hawks’ assault. And, of course, the way Barnett framed Fallon’s role — as the “one man” standing between the hawks and war with Iran (a silly and unnecessarily sensational characterization given the well-known views of both Gates and the Joint Chiefs) who was “brazenly challenging his commander-in-chief” — constituted an irresistible provocation to the White House and Bush’s own self-image as “the Decider.”

As noted by the Center for American Progress’ (CAP) daily Progress Report Thursday, the hawks, and particularly the neo-conservatives, are most pleased with the latest turn of events (and not because it supposedly vindicates the principle of civilian control of the military, as they insist). Max Boot, who, after touring Iraq with Petraeus earlier this year, characterized Fallon as “unimpressive,” called the resignation “good news,” while the Wall Street Journal’s neo-conservative editorial board called it “especially good news.” In the National Review Online, Center for Security Policy (CSP) president and ueber-hawk Frank Gaffney reached back to what he called Fallon’s “toxic leadership” and “appeasement of Communist China” during his Paccom tenure and accused him of “serial acts of insubordination” who had “proven himself utterly unserious about the Iranian threat” by suggesting, among other things, that Tehran could eventually participate in a summit of Persian Gulf chiefs of defense.” The notion that Iran could, if it is willing to make certain concessions, become a part of a new regional security structure apparently is beyond the pale, despite the fact that the administration itself has not excluded such a possibility.

Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard ran a lengthy and tendentious piece by Naval War College Prof. Mackubin Thomas Owens that bemoaned the turbulent state of civil-military relations and accused Fallon, without providing any concrete evidence, “of contradicting the president in public,” presumably with respect to the Surge (where Fallon’s reservations were voiced privately and clearly reflected those of both Gates and the Pentagon brass, including the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. George Casey) and on Iran (where Fallon has repeatedly echoed the official U.S. line that Washington did not want to go to war but never ruled it out altogether either). “The differences between Fallon and the administration were real, not the result of any misperception,”Owens insisted, thus contradicting statements not only by Fallon and Gates, but by the White House, as well.

What is really at stake here, of course, is control over U.S. policy and the way it is conducting its “global war on terror.” Fallon’s enemies see Iraq as the central front in that war and that Washington must “win” it at all costs, even at the risk of further degrading overstretched U.S. ground forces. (The Journal, channeling John McCain, suggests that the answer to that risk to substantially increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps.) And they oppose any detente with Iran, even at the risk of triggering an accidental war that the U.S. military and the oil-consuming public can ill afford. They see Fallon’s “strategic vision,” which it seems that Gates and the Joint Chiefs share, as a major threat to their priorities.

And they should. As noted in a release by the National Security Network Wednesday,

“Adm. Fallon’s resignation yesterday as head of Central Command underscores the deep divisions and philosophical debate between those in the Bush Administration who seek to narrowly focus on Iraq, and those who seek to create a broader strategic and regional framework of which Iraq is one component. Fallon’s abrupt resignation highlights the concerns of those who hold the latter view, and further demonstrates how the Bush Administration is neglecting this perspective to the detriment of America’s short and long-term national security interests.”

That view is echoed by Wayne White, the highly regarded former State Department analyst who spent most of his nearly 30-year foreign service career devoted to the Middle East and South Asia region:

“Whatever the story here–differences with the Administration over Iran, clashes with Petraeus over Iraq, a tendency toward somewhat more independent regional diplomacy, or all the above–Fallon’s departure is a major loss.

“This Administration clearly needs someone who could step back from Iraq–or the issues of Iran, Afghanistan & Pakistan collectively–in order to take a hard look at the situation (including the impact of these challenges in the context of so-called U.S. global reach, the readiness of American ground forces, and overall U.S. credibility) at the strategic level.

“Fallon was able to think not only strategically, but also ‘out of the box,’ something so often lacking in the deliberations of the Administration since 2002–an Administration which has been plagued by groupthink.”

White’s comments offer the most succinct reason why I think Fallon’s departure — and the fact that Gates and the Joint Chiefs, who, to my mind, clearly share his strategic views, if not his outspokenness — is bad news. The fact that the realists will no longer have an officer of Fallon’s stature “walking the point” in the bureaucratic battles over U.S. strategy in the months before Bush leaves office is a potentially serious blow to their efforts to reduce the hawks’ influence on U.S. policy and one that could well influence the calculations of the regional players in ways that will increase tensions and the chances of a major confrontation, rather than reduce them.

In that respect, the juxtaposition of Fallon’s resignation with Cheney’s trip to the region has to be seen as particularly worrisome. While I have no doubt a major purpose of the trip is to jawbone the Saudis and the UAE into increasing their oil production as a way of enhancing the chances of a Republican victory in the November presidential elections, the Israel leg of the trip seems particularly fraught. On the one hand, it may be that, given the part played by Cheney in undermining Powell’s efforts to resume peace Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in early 2002, Bush and Rice decided that the vice president would be especially effective in persuading Israel’s leaders to make serious concessions to Abbas, including a real freeze on settlement activity, to get make the Annapolis process more credible. But I have my doubts. With Fallon’s departure — not to mention the administration’s last-minute efforts to make it more difficult for the media and the public to get their hands on the Pentagon report detailing just how wrong the hawks were in trying to connect Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda — Cheney and his allies may be feeling their oats.


http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=115

An Admiral and a Self-Serving Administration

The Independent - Thursday, 13 March 2008

Esquire magazine's recent description of Admiral William Fallon as "the man between peace and war" seems a little unfortunate in the light of his resignation this week as head of US Central Command. It is especially so, considering that the article to which this description was attached is being cited as the reason Admiral Fallon had to step down.

The official explanation for his resignation is that there was a damaging "perception problem" of a difference of opinion between Fallon and the White House. On the contrary, this departure was all about substance. It was an open secret in US military circles that the admiral disagreed with the Bush administration's strategy in the Middle East. He was against the troop "surge" in Iraq and wanted to give military priority to Afghanistan and Pakistan instead. In particular, he disagreed with the administration's bellicose attitude towards Iran. The White House is at pains to argue that the military option with regard to Iran remains "on the table", despite the release last year of a US National Intelligence Estimate report stating that Tehran is no longer pursuing a nuclear weapon. Yet Admiral Fallon had this to say last autumn on Iran to the Arabic broadcaster Al-Jazeera: "This constant drumbeat of conflict is not helpful or useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for." A more obvious rebuff to his political masters could scarcely have been conceived.

Admiral Fallon is quite right about the self-defeating policies of the Bush administration. Iraq has indeed been a dangerous distraction from Afghanistan and Pakistan.With regard to Iran, it is true that, as the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates pointed out this week, an American attack on the country's nuclear sites is most unlikely in the wake of the NIE report. But although the White House may not be about to order an assault, the administration's hard line on Tehran is certainly impeding progress to regional stability.

Admiral Fallon is not the first to fail to persuade the White House to adopt a more constructive approach to Iran. The 2006 Iraq Study Group recommended bringing neighbouring states, including Iran, on board to improve the security situation in the country. Yet despite commissioning the report, Mr Bush did exactly the opposite, seeking to isolate Iran and ordering the surge into Baghdad.

What lies behind this refusal to engage? After so many years of policy failure and repeated rejections of informed advice, it is impossible not to conclude that the root of the administration's resistance is a simple, stubborn, ideological rigidity. It is a rigidity for which the region has paid a catastrophic price.

Is Petraeus "the Man Most Responsible" for Fallon's Resignation?

by Matt Corley, Think Progress - 5:47 AM

http://www.upi.com/International_Security/...lons_fall/9551/

Date: Friday, March 14, 2008

Commentary: Fox Fallon's fall

By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE, UPI Editor at Large

WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- The abrupt resignation of Middle Eastern commander Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon over a controversial interview and profile in Esquire magazine was a carefully choreographed exit for the 63-year-old Navy aviator. The first Navy man appointed to head the Central Command, which stretches from the Middle East to South Asia and includes Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he is now one of three former Centcom commanders who are opposed to bombing Iran's nuclear facilities if the mullahs keep on trucking their nuclear weapon ambitions.

Denials notwithstanding, the bone of contention with the White House was President Bush's frequent reminder that the military option against Iran is still on the table. Gen. John Abizaid, Fallon's immediate predecessor, and retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni have spoken up in favor of diplomatic engagement with Iran at the highest religious level. Henry Kissinger's two secret trips to Beijing in July and October 1971, which paved the way for President Nixon's meeting with Mao Zedong in February 1972, are cited as the model; they changed the course of history.

Abizaid, an Arabic speaker, talking about the exercise of "smart" power diplomacy, argues the United States and the rest of the world may have to live with an Iranian "bomb," just as the U.S. learned to live with Soviet and Chinese nuclear weapons. But this would be the end result of a geopolitical bargain that would entail a resumption of diplomatic relations, an end to all economic sanctions and a non-aggression treaty, in return for what the United States wants -- an end to military support for Shia militia in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the last two on the U.S. and Israeli lists of terrorist organizations.

To deny Iran a nuclear deterrent is to deny geopolitical realities; five of the world's eight nuclear powers are in the region (Russia to the north, Israel to the West, Pakistan and India to the east, and the United States to the south with carrier-borne nukes) where Iran, known as Persia until 1935, is the proud descendant of the Persian civilization (dating back to 559 B.C.).

Zinni, Abizaid and now Fallon and other generals in and out of uniform are convinced any bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities would trigger bloody asymmetric retaliation against U.S. interests throughout the Middle East -- and beyond. Not to mention Russian and Chinese support for Iran. A Democrat in the White House in January 2009, whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, would take the military option off the table, even if not specifically stated. But a Republican presidency would put it back on; as John McCain has said more than once, there is only one thing worse than bombing Iran -- and that's an Iranian nuclear bomb.

The latest round of U.N. Security Council-approved sanctions is, at best, tepid. EU negotiating partners with Iran -- Britain, France and Germany -- tell the United States sanctions screws are being slowly tightened, though not to the point when Tehran will decide it can no longer pay outstanding trade debts to the Europeans applying the pressure.

McCain's close friend Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., invoking clandestine Iranian explosives smuggled into Iraq, has called for retaliatory military action against Tehran. He and many others warn that Israel faces an existential crisis. One Iranian nuclear-tipped missile on Jerusalem or Tel Aviv could destroy Israel, they argue. U.S. generals and admirals who speak out against the military option say the mullahs wouldn't be crazy enough to risk the vaporization of their entire country, which is what would happen if they fired a nuclear weapon against Israel.

The mullahocracy still thumbs its nose at the United States as it continues enriching uranium to the point when it will have enough to fuel its first nuclear weapon, a year or two from now. Fox Fallon was fully acquainted with contingency planning for action against Iran. With the army tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the brunt of an attack would fall on the U.S. Navy's battle carrier groups and its cruise missiles and Air Force B-2 bombers based in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. If orders to attack came from the commander in chief in the White House, the attack would be under Fallon's orders. So Fallon did what he felt senior military commanders opposed to the invasion of Iraq should have done in early-2003.

Fallon also knew Vice President Dick Cheney was off to the Middle East, ostensibly to nudge the peace process with Israel's Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leaders. But Cheney also had Saudi Arabia and Oman on his schedule, two key bystanders in any attack scenario against Iran. Fallon remembered Cheney made a similar, well-publicized trip to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries in March 2002. Diplomacy about Iraq, not war, was the agenda. War followed a year later.

U.S. warships, including an Aegis guided-missile destroyer (USS Ross), off the coast of Lebanon, teetering yet again on the edge of a resumption of its 15-year civil war (1975-90), were interpreted by some military analysts as insurance for Israel against Iranian missile reprisals.

Israeli President Shimon Peres' trip to Paris was, by his own admission, reassurance to President Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel will not act unilaterally to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. Sarkozy, in a major departure from his predecessors, pledged France would always be at Israel's side. Did Fallon interpret that to mean Bush has assured Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Israel will not have to act alone? (Peres, as a young French-speaking aide to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in the mid-1950s, negotiated with the French IVth Republic "the world's worst-kept secret" for "the-bomb-that-never-is," Israel's first installment in nuclear weapons know-how.) Fallon evidently didn't want to be the top military commander in the Middle East in the event of hostilities with Iran. He knew what the Esquire article would say about his strategic reservations. In his ambiguous "farewell address" that ended a brilliant 43-year naval career, Fox said, "Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region."

Fallon did not say he knows for a fact there were no differences about policy objectives in his area of responsibility, but "the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to serve America's interests there."

--

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

The Importance of Fallon's Fall - Michael Barone, US News & World Report

Operation Cassandra

By William S. Lind

26/03/08 "Lew Rockwell"- -- Admiral Fallon's (forced?) resignation was the last warning we are likely to get of an attack on Iran. It does not mean an attack is certain, but the U.S. could not attack Iran so long as he was the CENTCOM commander. That obstacle is now gone.

Vice President Cheney's Middle East tour is another indicator. According to a report in The American Conservative, on his previous trip Cheney told our allies, including the Saudis, that Bush would attack Iran before the end of his term. If that report was correct, then his current tour might have the purpose of telling them when it is coming.

Why not just do that through the State Department? State may not be in the loop, nor all of DOD for that matter. The State Department, OSD, the intelligence agencies, the Army and the Marine Corps are all opposed to war with Iran. Of the armed services, only the Air Force reportedly is in favor, seeking an opportunity to show what air power can do. As always, it neglects to inform the decision-makers what it cannot do.

The purpose of this column is not to warn of an imminent assault on Iran, though personally I think it is coming, and soon. Rather, it is to warn of a possible consequence of such an attack. Let me state it here, again, as plainly as I can: an American attack on Iran could cost us the whole army we now have in Iraq.

Lots of people in Washington are pondering possible consequences of an air and missile assault on Iran, but few if any have thought about this one. The American military's endless "we’re the greatest" propaganda has convinced most people that the U.S. armed forces cannot be beaten in the field. They are the last in a long line of armies that could not be beaten, until they were.

Here's roughly how it might play out. In response to American air and missile strikes on military targets inside Iran, Iran moves to cut the supply lines coming up from the south through the Persian Gulf (can anyone in the Pentagon guess why it's called that?) and Kuwait on which most U.S. Army units in Iraq depend (the Marines get most of their stuff through Jordan). It does so by hitting shipping in the Gulf, mining key choke points, and destroying the port facilities we depend on, mostly through sabotage. It also hits oil production and export facilities in the Gulf region, as a decoy: we focus most of our response on protecting the oil, not guarding our army’s supply lines.

Simultaneously, Iran activates the Shiite militias to cut the roads that lead from Kuwait to Baghdad. Both the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades – the latter now supposedly our allies – enter the war against us with their full strength. Ayatollah Sistani, an Iranian, calls on all Iraqi Shiites to fight the Americans wherever they find them. Instead of fighting the 20% of Iraq's population that is Sunni, we find ourselves battling the 60% that is Shiite. Worse, the Shiites logistics lie directly across those logistics lines coming up from Kuwait.

U.S. Army forces in Iraq begin to run out of supplies, especially POL, of which they consume a vast amount. Once they are largely immobilized by lack of fuel, and the region gets some bad weather that keeps our aircraft grounded or at least blind, Iran sends two to four regular army armor and mech divisions across the border. Their objective is to pocket American forces in and around Baghdad.

The U.S. military in Iraq is all spread out in penny packets fighting insurgents. We have no field army there anymore. We cannot reconcentrate because we're out of gas and Shiite guerrillas control the roads. What units don't get overrun by Iranian armor or Shiite militia end up in the Baghdad Kessel. General Petraeus calls President Bush and repeals the famous words of Marshal I MacMahon at Sedan: "Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés." Bush thinks he's overheard Petraeus ordering dinner – as, for Bush, he has.

U.S. Marines in Iraq, who are mostly in Anbar province, are the only force we have left. Their lines of supply and retreat through Jordan are intact. The local Sunnis want to join them in fighting the hated Persians. What do they do at that point? Good question.

How probable is all this? I can't answer that. Unfortunately, the people in Washington who should be able to answer it are not asking it. They need to start doing so, now.

It is imperative that we have an up-to-date plan for dealing with this contingency. That plan must not depend on air power to rescue our army. Air power always promises more than it can deliver.

As I have warned before, every American ground unit in Iraq needs its own plan to get itself out of the country using only its own resources and whatever it can scrounge locally. Retreat to the north, through Kurdistan into Turkey, will be the only alternative open to most U.S. Army units, other than ending up in an Iranian POW camp.

Even if the probability of the above scenario is low, we still need to take it with the utmost seriousness because the consequences would be so vast. If the United States lost the army it has in Iraq, we would never recover from the defeat. It would be another Adrianople, another Manzikert, another Rocroi. Given the many other ways we now resemble Imperial Spain, the last analogy may be the most telling.

I have said all this before, in previous columns and elsewhere. If I sound like Cassandra on this point, remember that events ended up proving her right.

March 26, 2008

William Lind is an analyst based in Washington, DC.

Copyright © 2008 William S. Lind
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19613.htm