The sailor stands down

March 13th, 2008

Having suffered these bouts of postus interruptus for awhile has put me at odds with what we should discuss first — there’s so much popping at the moment. But since I put out the excellent Esquire article on Admiral Fallen on Friday, I think we’ll go there today.

First though, Eliot Spitzer’s fall from grace has us all examining prostitution as a profession, New York politics in general and the sensibilities of embarrassed mates in the camera’s glare. I wish we’d behave like adults once in awhile, instead of like titillated teens, but … there you have it. And the notion that an antiquated law, suspect from the git-go, like the Mann Act could play into this is absurd. There is question about the investigation of Spitzer that needs addressing [a Must Read, that one] — it sounds too much like OTHER governors that have been jailed recently; and it’s interesting that the Democratic guy will be pilloried while Republicans like Vitter and Craig carry on ‘as usual.’ These articles, here and here, are grownup reads on the morality issues. I think the cautionary tale here is that when you sell yourself as a White Knight … and damned effectively … you’d better keep your armor on.

Dubby veto’d the Congressional outlawing of waterboarding yesterday — here are good articles by Wes Clark and Rand Beers on why that is another of Bush’s monumental and perverse errors. The link to the excellent Washington Monthly collection of 30-some essays these came from, entitled No More, can be found here.

Dub will come out of his tenure no longer bubbled, and whimpering daily about how misunderstood he is — believe it. But at the moment, nobody appears able to tell him the truth about his future — he’s comfortably wrapped in delusion. He didn’t know that gas was projected to go to $4 a gallon [it hit an all-time high of $109 a barrel yesterday, and his demands of his good friends the Saudis to increase production was met with a hearty pffffft!]

But George remains cheerful. He says that he’ll be remembered for his excellent Iraq war as “forever the right decision” and that cutting taxes will prove to have been the best course for America [read that as bringing her to her economic knees] — so, considering the reality said Decider’s reality is in, we can now consider an attack on Iran [perhaps in defense of our good friend Israel] more possible than not … especially since that rational and “insubordinate” Fallen has been kicked to the curb. Uncle Dick is in the Middle East as we speak, supposedly putting the screws [the few we have left] to King Abdullah to increase crude production.

There are a few hysterical op/ed’s out there, but I’ve bypassed them for now — whatever is ratcheting up is covert at this point, and speculative. The last snip, by Juan Cole, reflects the ‘cool head’ approach — Juan is the go-to guy for all things Iraq, by the way; he’s the truth-teller, so if you want to hear the truth about how the surge is falling apart and how the violence is creeping back up [12 of ours this month, more more more of theirs] visit his blog, Informed Comment, from time to time.

Jude

First Casualty Of The Iran War
Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster - The Progress Report
March 13, 2008

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that CentCom commander Adm. William Fallon, who had been in the position for roughly a year, had submitted his resignation. Fallon’s resignation came a week after news first leaked of an article in Esquire magazine by former Naval War College professor Thomas P.M. Barnett that suggested Fallon was the “one man” standing between the Bush administration and war with Iran and that it could cost him his job. “Well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring,” wrote Barnett. Though Fallon publicly rejected the article, he told Gates upon resigning that “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.” White House aides told the Wall Street Journal that “senior Bush administration officials saw the article as a sign tha Adm. Fallon was trying to publicly undercut” President Bush. “It was seen as a form of insubordination,” said one White House aide. While Iran has been the focus of much of the commentary surrounding Fallon’s exit, Gates called Fallon’s resignation “a cumulative kind of thing” that “isn’t the result of any one article or any one issue.” In fact, Fallon’s public disagreements with the administration over Iraq may have had as much influence on his falling out of favor.

A DIFFERENT POINT OF VIEW: “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,” writes Thom Shanker in the New York Times. Especially “where his views competed with those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq, who is a favorite of the White House.” As a nominee for the CentCom position in January 2007, Fallon refused to endorse Bush’s surge strategy, saying that he’s “always been someone who felt more comfortable in smaller numbers.” Since then, he has been a proponent of “developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops” in Iraq in order to “balance deployments across the volatile region” he commanded. Last month, after Gates endorsed a “pause” in troop withdrawals this summer, Fallon told the New York Times that it should only be “temporary and brief” and that U.S. strategy should shift focus to a “supporting, sustaining, advising, training and mentoring role.” A “senior Pentagon official” told Slate’s Fred Kaplan that Fallon’s comments were “unauthorized,” which Kaplan says amounts to “challenging the president’s policy…at his own initiative.”

‘NOT HELPFUL’ WHEN IT COMES TO IRAN: Although Fallon’s preference for diplomatic engagement with Iran rather than saber-rattling has been echoed by Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen, Fallon’s manner of delivering that message differed considerably from the administration script. In Barnett’s Esquire article, Fallon says a narrow focus on Iran is not wise because “in a part of the world with ‘five or six pots boiling over, our nation can’t afford to be mesmerized by one problem.’” “This constant drumbeat of conflict” with Iran “is not helpful and not useful,” Fallon told al Jazeera in September 2007. In December 2007, he told the Financial Times, “Another war is just not where we want to go.” Last year, he was quoted as saying an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.” In November, after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Fallon allowed it to be reported that he had “ruled out a possible strike against Iran and said Washington was mulling nonmilitary options instead.” According to Newsweek, Fallon’s main mistake was that he never included the caveat “of course, no options are off the table” in order to stay within administration policy.

RIGHT WING REJOICES: Right-wing war hawks are glad to see Fallon go. The Wall Street Journal Editorial board wrote yesterday that Fallon’s resignation is “good news” because it will allow Bush to begin “to pay attention to the internal Pentagon dispute” over Iraq withdrawal. The New York Sun editorial board concurred, arguing that the “real news” of Fallon’s resignation is that Petraeus might get to take over as CentCom commander. Writing an op-ed titled “Fallon didn’t get it” in the Los Angeles Times yesterday, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot ridiculed Fallon as one of the “guys who think they’re smart” and is “undermining” Bush’s Iran strategy. “Fallon makes it more likely, not less, that there will ultimately be an armed confrontation with Iran,” wrote Boot. Writing for National Review, conservative hawk Frank Gaffney attacked Fallon as “a military man who has proven himself utterly unserious about the Iranian threat” and “had engaged in serial acts of insubordination and sabotage.”

Are We Closer to War?
Dan Froomkin, WaPo
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The abrupt resignation yesterday of the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Admiral William J. “Fox” Fallon, has sparked a new round of speculation that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have some sort of plan in the works to attack Iran before their time is up.

Fallon’s resignation — or firing — was apparently precipitated in part by a recent Esquire profile that depicted him as brazenly pushing back against the White House hawks eager to launch another war.

Now it turns out that what Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former Naval War College professor, wrote in that profile was eerily prescient: “How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

“The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.

“Just as Fallon took over Centcom last spring, the White House was putting itself on a war footing with Iran. Almost instantly, Fallon began to calmly push back against what he saw as an ill-advised action. Over the course of 2007, Fallon’s statements in the press grew increasingly dismissive of the possibility of war, creating serious friction with the White House.

“Last December, when the National Intelligence Estimate downgraded the immediate nuclear threat from Iran, it seemed as if Fallon’s caution was justified. But still, well-placed observers now say that it will come as no surprise if Fallon is relieved of his command before his time is up next spring, maybe as early as this summer, in favor of a commander the White House considers to be more pliable. If that were to happen, it may well mean that the president and vice-president intend to take military action against Iran before the end of this year and don’t want a commander standing in their way.

“And so Fallon, the good cop, may soon be unemployed because he’s doing what a generation of young officers in the U. S. military are now openly complaining that their leaders didn’t do on their behalf in the run-up to the war in Iraq: He’s standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war.”

Thom Shanker writes in the New York Times:

“Admiral Fallon had rankled senior officials of the Bush administration in recent months with comments that emphasized diplomacy over conflict in dealing with Iran, that endorsed further troop withdrawals from Iraq beyond those already under way and that suggested the United States had taken its eye off the military mission in Afghanistan.

“A senior administration official said that, taken together, the comments ‘left the perception he had a different foreign policy than the president.’ . . .

“The White House issued a statement from President Bush that, while complimentary, was pale by comparison to other messages of farewell for senior officials with whom Mr. Bush has worked more closely. . . .

“[T]here 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. . . .

“Across the officer corps, a large number of senior military leaders share Admiral Fallon’s broad assessment that a war with Iran would bring unexpected and, perhaps, unmanageable, risks elsewhere in the Muslim world and around the globe.

“But many said they agreed that once it became clear he had lost the confidence of his civilian bosses, it was the responsibility of the four-star admiral to retire. That was especially so, they said, as it became obvious that no great effort was being made by civilian leaders to persuade him to remain in command.

“At the same time, some younger officers who have been critical of senior commanders for not speaking up about the risks of invading Iraq now see a senior officer who did speak his mind publicly being prompted to choose early retirement.”

Yochi J. Dreazen writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that Fallon’s departure “could make it easier for the Bush administration to maintain troop levels in Iraq and adopt a tougher approach to Iran.

“Adm. Fallon had favored a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, arguing that the open-ended deployment of 140,000 military personnel there was causing growing manpower strains throughout the armed forces. That position sparked tensions with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and a White House favorite.

“Adm. Fallon has also long appeared to question the administration’s Iran policy, arguing publicly that the White House’s hard-line rhetoric and implied threats of military force against Iran were dangerous and unproductive. In interviews with a variety of media outlets in recent months, Adm. Fallon played down the possibility of an American strike on Iran and indicated that he thought such an attack would be a mistake.

“The resignation made Adm. Fallon one of the first high-ranking military officers to leave active duty amid tensions with the White House since President Harry Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur at the height of the Korean War. . . .

“The Esquire profile was published on the Internet last week and sparked an immediate furor within the White House and the Pentagon. Senior Bush administration officials saw the article as a sign that Adm. Fallon was trying to publicly undercut Mr. Bush and limit the president’s hand, according to two White House aides familiar with the internal discussions.

“‘It was seen as a form of insubordination,’ one of the White House officials said.”

On the NBC Nightly News, Jim Miklaszewski reported:

“Sources say that, in the end, under pressure from the White House, Defense Secretary Gates refused to take Fallon’s calls, making it clear he had to go.” [emphasis added, J]

Thomas E. Ricks writes in The Washington Post:

“Fallon is expected to step down at the end of the month, after barely a year in his position, and just eight days before Petraeus is scheduled to testify before Congress about conditions in Iraq. . . .

“Several Democrats were quick to accuse the administration of not tolerating dissent. ‘It’s distressing that Admiral Fallon feels he had to step down,’ said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). ‘President Bush’s oft-repeated claim that he follows the advice of his commanders on the ground rings hollow if our commanders don’t feel free to disagree with the president.’ Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) asked whether Fallon’s resignation is a reflection that the administration is hostile to ‘the frank, open airing of experts’ views.’”

Janine Zacharia and Ken Fireman write for Bloomberg:

“Admiral William Fallon’s resignation as U.S. commander in the Middle East provoked criticism that President George W. Bush won’t tolerate dissent and fed speculation his Iran policy could become more confrontational. . . .

“Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a U.S. senator from New York, called Fallon a ’sensible voice’ that supported ‘engaging Iran.’ She urged her colleagues to back a bill requiring Bush to get congressional approval before taking any military action against Iran.

“Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska lamented Fallon’s departure, saying in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he was ‘very concerned to see him go.’”

On the CBS Evening News, David Martin narrated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’s unscheduled news conference, where Fallon’s resignation was announced:

Martin: “Secretary Gates insisted Fallon had not been pressured to resign.”

Gates: “Admiral Fallon reached this difficult decision entirely on his own.”

Martin: “He also insisted Fallon was not the odd man out when it came to war with Iran.”

Gates: “We’ve all talked about all options being on the table, but we’ve also focused on the importance of pursuing economic and diplomatic pressures against Iran. So I don’t think that there really were differences at all.”

Martin: “Gates has made no secret he, too, is opposed to war with Iran. But Fallon all but ruled it out, telling Al-Jazeera, ‘I expect there will be no war.’ So does Fallon’s departure clear the decks for another war?”

Gates: “The notion that this decision portends anything in terms of a change in Iran policy is . . . ridiculous.”

Martin concludes: “Virtually every senior military officer is opposed to war with Iran. But from now on they might be more cautious about how they say it.”

Terry Atlas blogs for U.S. News and World Report with “6 Signs the U.S. May Be Headed for War in Iran.” They are: Fallon’s resignation, Cheney’s trip to the Middle East, the Israeli airstrike on Syria, U.S. warships off Lebanon, Israeli comments and Israel’s war with Hezbollah.

Atlas explains each one. Why the Israeli airstrike on Syria, for instance? Atlas writes:

“Israel’s airstrike deep in Syria last October was reported to have targeted a nuclear-related facility, but details have remained sketchy and some experts have been skeptical that Syria had a covert nuclear program. An alternative scenario floating in Israel and Lebanon is that the real purpose of the strike was to force Syria to switch on the targeting electronics for newly received Russian anti-aircraft defenses. The location of the strike is seen as on a likely flight path to Iran (also crossing the friendly Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq), and knowing the electronic signatures of the defensive systems is necessary to reduce the risks for warplanes heading to targets in Iran.”

The Cheney Factor

Cheney leaves Sunday for a trip to the Middle East. In yesterday’s column, I suggested that reporters try to find out what he tells the Israelis about Iran. That’s even more important today…

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that, ever since December’s National Intelligence Estimate threw cold water on Bush and Cheney’s insistence that Iran was on the brink of nuclear weapons development, a preventative attack on Iran was no longer in the cards. But Bush has repeatedly brushed off the NIE’s findings. Administration pronouncements blaming Iran for fomenting attacks in Iraq are on the upswing again. And now Cheney’s on his way to Israel.

It’s still not really beyond Bush and Cheney to order a full-scale preemptive attack on Iran. But the more likely scenario is that there will be an asymmetrical U.S. response to a (possibly trumped up) Iranian provocation. And the most likely scenario is that the U.S. will encourage (or certainly not oppose) an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities — which in turn would lead the U.S. to come to Israel’s defense should Iran strike back.

That’s been a favorite Cheney scenario for more than a year. See, for instance, this Steve Clemons blog post from last May, later corroborated by the New York Times. And see my June 4 column, Cheney, By Proxy.

Snipped from Juan Cole, Informed Comment
3/12/08

…Secretary of Defense Robert Gates denied Tuesday that the abrupt resignation of Admiral William Fallon as CENTCOM commander indicates an imminent war against Iran. I think Gates’s denial is credible. There is no sign of an American war on Iran, which would involve key positioning of warships, materiel and troops. There is no congressional mandate for such a thing, despite the non-binding Kyl-Lieberman resolution in the senate. A provocation is not out of the question, but it would be a risky move in an election year and could easily backfire on the Republican Party (ask Aznar in Spain).

My guess is that the real reason for moving Fallon out is not Iran but Iraq, and that he is being made to step down for the same reason that Donald Rumsfeld was. He does not agree with the long-term troop escalation or ’surge’ in Iraq. He doesn’t believe that counter-insurgency will work in Iraq in the medium term. And as an admiral, he has his eye on potential trouble spots such as Taiwan and North Korea, and is frustrated that the hands of the US are tied as long as it is bogged down in the Iraq quagmire.

Having such a big dissenter as CENTCOM commander is inconvenient for the Republican Party at a time when John McCain is admitting that if he fails to convince the American people that the surge is succeeding, he will lose the presidency. That is, Fallon may have run afoul not of Cheney on Iran but McCain on Iraq. This may be Bush’s first favor to the Republican nominee, who after all had a career as a naval officer himself…

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

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