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

[C. G. Estabrook]

[From Josh Marshall <http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/>. --CGE]

Yesterday we reported at some length on the departure Adm. William Fallon, 
commander of Centcom. Then yesterday afternoon a reporter colleague told me that 
the real issue with Fallon wasn't Iran but something called "the pause."

With 'surges' and 'pauses' and various other bits of jargon floating around, 
it's a little hard to keep track. But essentially the 'pause' refers to how long 
we're going to put off drawing down our forces in Iraq. Fallon wanted a short 
pause, this colleague told me, and Petraeus wanted a long or (I think more 
likely) an indefinite one. Now Fred Kaplan at Slate and David Ignatius in the 
Post bring reports confirming that this was indeed the key issue.

So, not about Iran but Iraq -- and specifically whether we stay there 
indefinitely waiting on the El Dorado of political progress. Fallon wanted to 
start drawing down. His bosses disagreed. And now he's gone.


Barbara kessel wrote:
> 
>	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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