[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [Iran01] Stephen Kinzer on the Fallon 'resignation'

[Barbara kessel]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Lynn <mlynn226 at gmail.com>
Date: Mar 13, 2008 8:55 AM
Subject: [Iran01] Stephen Kinzer on the Fallon 'resignation'
To: noattackiran at yahoogroups.com, noattackiraneducation at yahoogroups.com,
noattackiranresolution at yahoogroups.com, ICPJ Iran Working Group <
iran01 at ilcpj.org>, Robin Semer <rsemer at ameritech.net>

Resigned to fate Stephen Kinzer

March 12, 2008 5:20 PM

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_kinzer/2008/03/resigned_to_fate.html

Anyone who believes the United States must bomb Iran should be jubilant at
news that Admiral William Fallon has been forced
out<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/11/usa.israelandthepalestinians>of
his job as the senior US commander in the Middle East.

For months, those arguing that war with Iran was unlikely have been pointing
to Fallon as a main reason why. Fallon had repeatedly made clear that he
would oppose such a mad adventure. Now, suddenly, he is out of a job. This
is a huge victory for vice-president Dick Cheney and others pushing for an
attack on Iran.

In announcing Fallon's resignation on Tuesday, secretary of defence Robert
Gates said it was "ridiculous" to speculate that the resignation makes war
with Iran more likely. Would that he were correct.

Senior US military officers have become increasingly distressed over the
close personal relationship that has developed between President Bush and
the commander of US operations in Iraq, General David Petraeus. This
relationship, they say, circumvents the chain of command and cuts officers
who rank above Petraeus out of their rightful role. Among those officers was
Fallon, who just a year ago became the first Naval officer to be named chief
of the US Central Command.

Bush likes Petreaus because Petreaus tells him what he wants to hear: that
the Iraq war is going well and the surge of US troops is working. He also
has an evident soft spot for Petreaus's deputy, Lieutenant General Raymond
Odierno, who never misses a chance to condemn Iran. Just last week, sitting
beside President Bush at a White House press conference, Odierno said Iran
was "still supporting insurgents" in Iraq and poses a "long-term threat" to
American interests.

That sounds right to Bush. He has little patience with other views, like
those Fallon expressed last fall in an interview with the Arab TV network
al-Jazeera. In that interview, Fallon asserted that the "constant drumbeat
of conflict" the Bush administration was aiming 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," Fallon said. "We ought to do our utmost to create different
conditions."

Those words were cited in a profile of Fallon that appears in the current
issue of Esquire. It was aptly called The Man Between War and
Peace<http://www.esquire.com/features/fox-fallon>.
With Fallon gone, despite what Gates said, war is one big step closer.

The Bush administration has a long history of cherry picking favourable
reports about the Middle East and ignoring those that contradict its fixed
opinions. That is just as dangerous now as it was in the run-up to the Iraq
war.

In 1953, after President Dwight Eisenhower decided to overthrow the Iranian
government headed by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, the CIA station
chief in Tehran, Roger Goiran, was ordered to help prepare the coup. Goiran
replied that intervening in Iran would be a terrible idea. The response from
Washington was simple and direct: Goiran was removed from his post.

That history is eerily relevant to today's news. The 1953 coup led to a host
of disasters that destabilised the Middle East and gravely weakened the
national security of the United States. An attack on Iran now would be no
less devastating.

Removing the CIA station chief - the man whose job it was to know more about
Iran than anyone else in the US government - was a precursor to America's
last violent intervention in Iran. Admiral Fallon's fall could well be a
precursor to another, equally tragic intervention.

Before becoming secretary of defence, Robert Gates co-directed a lengthy
study of US policy options toward Iran for the Council on Foreign Relations.
It recommended a "new strategic approach". With Fallon gone, Gates becomes
the key figure in deciding whether the US will go to war with Iran. If he
accepts the arguments for war, or fails to talk President Bush into
rejecting them, there will be war.

Since last December, when a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that
Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons programme, it has been
fashionable to say that the war option was off the table. If that was ever
true, it is no longer.

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