CENTCOM Commander Admiral William Fallon, the man who had dared to declare "there will be no war with Iran on my watch", has finally been fired. The pretext for his dismissal was a recent article in Esquire magazine. In his (rather sycophantic*) article about Fallon Thomas P.M. Barnett writes: If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, 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. He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. Setting aside the talk about Fallon's alleged "strategic brilliance" for a minute, there is no denying that Fallon has been outspoken against the Neocon plans for an aggression on Iran and against the Neocon's poster boy, General David Petraeus, whom he called an "ass-kissing little chickenshit" for cooking up the idiotic "Surge" plan to please the White House.
As Gareth Porter wrote recently, Fallon clearly knew that he would be fired and he fully cooperated with the Esquire article precisely because of this awareness. Although one can only guess at Fallon's deep motives, I would note here that even though Fallon is rather old for a flag officer he is still young enough for a political career (he is 63). Whatever may be the case, Esquire correctly predicted that Fallon would be fired soon, and indeed he was a couple of days after the publication of the article. Why did the White House fire a high-profile Admiral, was it really only over the Iran policy?
The answer can be found in a somewhat less publicized quote by Fallon made last May: "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box". You see, "crazies" is a long time "Anglo codeword" for the (mainly Jewish) Neocons "sitting the basement" as Papa-Bush used to say (see my previous articles "Daddy - what's a Neocon: ethnic Mafia wars in the USA" and "Some thoughts on current events"). In this context, the ouster of Fallon is without any doubt a major Neocon success: not only has the last senior US commander opposed to an attack on Iran been fired, but a major player of the "Old Anglo Guard" as been evicted from his power base. Regardless of who actually succeeds Dubya in the White House, the entire military command is now firmly back in Neocon hands. Ditto for both houses of Congress and most of the corporate media. While many naive observers thought that the resignation of Rumsfeld marked the end for the Neocons, the fact is that the Neocons have recovered amazingly fast:
1) All remaining Presidential candidates with a chance to actually get into the White House are firmly under Neocon control.
2) The vast majority of the political advisers of these candidates (who will become future key members of the next Administration) are also Neocons.
3) The Pengaton has been effectively cleared from any Old Anglo Guard members capable of opposing Neocon plans for more wars in the Middle-East. Even better, it makes it easier for the Neocons to trigger a "Persian Gulf of Tonkin" kind of incident to trigger a war with Iran even before the Presidential election thereby probably propelling the most beloved candidates of the Neocons (McCain) to power.
4) The efforts of the Old Anglo Guard (Carter, Scheuer, Mearsheimer , Walt, Ritter, Odom, etc.) to make the power of the Israel Lobby a political issue have failed to penetrate the "sound barrier" (to use Amy Goodman's expression) of the corporate media which remains firmly pro-Neocon (not a single US new outlet has been willing to interview Sibel Edmons about her allegations that top US officials were selling nuclear secrets!).
5) All the major political scandals threatening to expose the Neocons (the AIPAC espionage trial, Sibel Edmon's revelations, "Scooter" Libby's case, Valerie Plame, the "lost nukes" headed for the Middle-East, the Federal Prosecutors scandal, etc.) have effectively been buried and send down the memory hole.
Does that all mean that, as Justin Raimondo wrote, that "we are f*cked" and that the USA is headed for war? The short answer is "yes".
Neither the Old Anglo Guard nor the peace movement has been able to tackle the Neocon's power and influence. Sure, here and there, attempts were made, but none of that represented anything more than a nuisance for the formidable Israel Lobby and its absolutely submissive corporate media. As Friedrich Nietzsche said: "What does not kill me, makes me stronger". The Neocons and the Israel Lobby only came out stronger from all the half-hearted, if often sincere, efforts to expose them and their hijacking of the USA's polity.
As I have written many times in the past, the USA is not run by a political party, or by a President or even by the collective power of its corporations. The USA is, in reality, controlled and run by a Soviet-style "Nomenklatura", a not so small subset of the US economic elite, whose agenda has nothing to do with pragmatic US national interests. It is important to stress here that the USA is *not* run and controlled by "the Jews" as, in reality, major Jewish organizations are not truly representative of US Jewry (I repeat this here not out of some sense of "political correctness" but because, as any doctor knows, any mis-diagnosis makes it impossible to find a cure and risks making the problem even worse; besides the same could be said of the Anglo elite who does not represent the interests of most Americans). This is why it should be called the "Israel Lobby" and not the "Jewish Lobby".
The highest visible political expression of this Nomenklatura are the Neocons and their policies who can be summed up as "Israel über Alles" or, as Israel Shahak used to say, "think locally, act globally".
Consider that even a so-called "moderate" and "progressive" Israeli media outlet like Ha'aretz writes that "the road to Gaza runs through Tehran" and just imagine what the so-called "security establishment" thinks. Make no mistake: the Empire will attack Iran.
Since the US Army is already bogged down, overextended and essentially already defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Imperial High Command will use the Air Force and, even more so, the US Navy to attack Iran. As I have analyzed in detail in my article "Iran's asymmetrical response options" (original link here), the Empire cannot win such a conflict. But neither did Israel have any real chance of winning its war against Hezbollah in 2006. Its not about "winning" - its about perpetual war and remaining in power. Besides, you can be confident that at the end of the day, most dead will be Iranian and American - very few Israelis will suffer from such a conflict, or at least this is what the Israelis hope for.
I will repeat this over and over and over again: neither the Israelis nor the Neocons are capable of long-term strategic thinking and even though most people mistake their arrogance for intelligence, they are not nearly as smart as they think they are. Furthermore, the US and the Israeli intelligence community is amazingly incompetent (in particular in HUMINT) and it has a long history of baffling SNAFUs behind it. The US intelligence community is bloated beyond belief, poorly coordinated, it is mostly staffed by bureaucrats and it sorely lacks analysts which actually understand the countries they are supposed to provide expert analysis for. As for the Israelis, they are way too arrogant in their anti-Arab, if not anti-Gentile, racism to even imagine that they could actually get their butts kicked, hence the long list of Mossad screw-ups. Tom Clancy novels are one thing, the real world is something quite different. The bottom line is that it would be folly to expect the US or Israeli intelligence officials to speak up against a war with Iran. They will do not such thing, if only because that would end their careers.
As for the so-called "US allies" (whether of the "New Europe" or the "Old Europe" persuasion), they will stay away from any such war, but they will do nothing meaningful to oppose it either: they all well know that the Neocons will not listen and that being the "true believers" that they are, they operate from a messianic point of view which cannot be affected by either facts on the ground or rational analysis.
Fallon's ouster marks the removal of the last possible impediment to a smooth going to war with Iran and while that this does not necessarily mean that the war is imminent, or even truly inevitable, it makes it very, very likely.
---
* For a good article on Fallon check out Crushing the Ants: The Admiral and the Empire by Chris Floyd. For more analyses of the meaning of the firing of Fallon listen to the interviews of Gareth Porter and Ray McGovern.
Showing posts with label Fallon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fallon. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Adm. Fallon Presses Case Against Iran
Bahrain (AP) -- The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East is pressing Arab allies to form a more united front against Iran, seen by Washington as the region's long-term threat.
At military compounds and royal reception halls across the Persian Gulf, Adm. William Fallon is delivering personal appeals to Arab leaders to counter Iran's ambitions to expand its regional influence and move ahead with its nuclear program.
Fallon has carefully avoided publicly discussing any war contingency plans or making any direct threats against Iran, which sits in his sphere of operations. As head of U.S. Central Command, he oversees forces in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
His current 10-day trip, which began Saturday in Bahrain, was more about seeking to quietly galvanize Gulf leaders while letting others sharply escalate pressure on Tehran. On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.
"We are not looking for a new NATO-type alliance against Iran," Fallon told The Associated Press after talks with Bahrain's defense minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa.
But the U.S. wants that "when they (Iran) look to the Gulf, they see a group united in response to Iranian hegemonic behavior," Fallon said.
That's not such a simple task.
Many of the small Gulf nations, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have deep cultural, historical or business ties to Iran and increasingly look to Iran as a crucial source for oil and gas as their own fields begin to dwindle in coming decades. They also worry about angering local Shiite communities with affinity to Shiite heavyweight Iran.
In May, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allowed by authorities in Dubai — the economic dynamo of the Emirates — to lead a rare anti-American rally a day after a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney aimed at countering Tehran's influence.
Still, strong forces pull Gulf states in Washington's direction.
The Gulf's main power, Saudi Arabia, worries about its regional rival Iran increasing its influence among Shiite Muslims, who form a majority in Iraq and have significant communities among the Sunni-dominated nations of the Gulf.
Washington also has forged close military alliances across the Gulf with about 40,000 U.S. troops on land bases — including Kuwait as a key staging ground for Iraq and an expanding presence in Bahrain as host of the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters.
"These governments realize that they cannot make an enemy of Iran because they have to live with Iran right across the Gulf. On the other hand, they don't want to harm their ties with the United States, which has many interests in the neighborhood," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington. "It's a very difficult spot."
Fallon carries the message that the Gulf states are an important front-line deterrent to Iran, which controls the entire northern coastline of the Gulf and could threaten critical oil tanker routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Military officials with knowledge of Fallon's meetings also suggested that pressure from Gulf nations could dissuade Iranian naval forces from challenging U.S. and allies watching over Iraqi oil platforms and shipping lanes into Kuwait and Iraq. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
They said small vessels of Iran's Revolutionary Guard — operating independently from the regular Iranian navy — have apparently been increasing patrols just inside Iran's maritime borders near Iraq's tiny Gulf coast. This is the area where 15 British soldiers and marines were seized in March and held for 13 days by Iran, which claimed the Britons strayed into its waters.
The United States and other nations, led by Britain and Australia, currently have more than two dozen ships in the Gulf region, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and two amphibious ships with their strike groups.
The Enterprise arrived last month shortly after the departure of two carriers, USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz, which had been in the Gulf since February in a show of force against Iran.
Fallon's predecessor, retired Gen. John Abizaid, said in Washington on Monday that U.S. forces have the power to "deter Iran should it become nuclear."
"We want to send Iran a message that there are no cracks between the U.S. and its allies here," Fallon said.
His views have the ear of some of the top members of the Gulf's royal families.
In Bahrain, Fallon expressed support for a possible $300 million upgrade for the nation's F-16 fleet and met with Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, who also serves as commander in chief of the nation's military forces.
Fallon was in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. Later in the day, he headed to Oman, and his tour will also take him to Qatar, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
-------
So much for any hopes that Fallon opposes a war against Iran; looks like he jumped ship after all - VS
At military compounds and royal reception halls across the Persian Gulf, Adm. William Fallon is delivering personal appeals to Arab leaders to counter Iran's ambitions to expand its regional influence and move ahead with its nuclear program.
Fallon has carefully avoided publicly discussing any war contingency plans or making any direct threats against Iran, which sits in his sphere of operations. As head of U.S. Central Command, he oversees forces in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.
His current 10-day trip, which began Saturday in Bahrain, was more about seeking to quietly galvanize Gulf leaders while letting others sharply escalate pressure on Tehran. On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the world should prepare for war if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.
"We are not looking for a new NATO-type alliance against Iran," Fallon told The Associated Press after talks with Bahrain's defense minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Ahmad Al Khalifa.
But the U.S. wants that "when they (Iran) look to the Gulf, they see a group united in response to Iranian hegemonic behavior," Fallon said.
That's not such a simple task.
Many of the small Gulf nations, including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, have deep cultural, historical or business ties to Iran and increasingly look to Iran as a crucial source for oil and gas as their own fields begin to dwindle in coming decades. They also worry about angering local Shiite communities with affinity to Shiite heavyweight Iran.
In May, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allowed by authorities in Dubai — the economic dynamo of the Emirates — to lead a rare anti-American rally a day after a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney aimed at countering Tehran's influence.
Still, strong forces pull Gulf states in Washington's direction.
The Gulf's main power, Saudi Arabia, worries about its regional rival Iran increasing its influence among Shiite Muslims, who form a majority in Iraq and have significant communities among the Sunni-dominated nations of the Gulf.
Washington also has forged close military alliances across the Gulf with about 40,000 U.S. troops on land bases — including Kuwait as a key staging ground for Iraq and an expanding presence in Bahrain as host of the U.S. 5th Fleet headquarters.
"These governments realize that they cannot make an enemy of Iran because they have to live with Iran right across the Gulf. On the other hand, they don't want to harm their ties with the United States, which has many interests in the neighborhood," said Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington. "It's a very difficult spot."
Fallon carries the message that the Gulf states are an important front-line deterrent to Iran, which controls the entire northern coastline of the Gulf and could threaten critical oil tanker routes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Military officials with knowledge of Fallon's meetings also suggested that pressure from Gulf nations could dissuade Iranian naval forces from challenging U.S. and allies watching over Iraqi oil platforms and shipping lanes into Kuwait and Iraq. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
They said small vessels of Iran's Revolutionary Guard — operating independently from the regular Iranian navy — have apparently been increasing patrols just inside Iran's maritime borders near Iraq's tiny Gulf coast. This is the area where 15 British soldiers and marines were seized in March and held for 13 days by Iran, which claimed the Britons strayed into its waters.
The United States and other nations, led by Britain and Australia, currently have more than two dozen ships in the Gulf region, including the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and two amphibious ships with their strike groups.
The Enterprise arrived last month shortly after the departure of two carriers, USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz, which had been in the Gulf since February in a show of force against Iran.
Fallon's predecessor, retired Gen. John Abizaid, said in Washington on Monday that U.S. forces have the power to "deter Iran should it become nuclear."
"We want to send Iran a message that there are no cracks between the U.S. and its allies here," Fallon said.
His views have the ear of some of the top members of the Gulf's royal families.
In Bahrain, Fallon expressed support for a possible $300 million upgrade for the nation's F-16 fleet and met with Crown Prince Sheik Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, who also serves as commander in chief of the nation's military forces.
Fallon was in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. Later in the day, he headed to Oman, and his tour will also take him to Qatar, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
-------
So much for any hopes that Fallon opposes a war against Iran; looks like he jumped ship after all - VS
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
War Bosses Butting Heads
Wired news reports that France is preparing war plans in case an international coalition decides to force Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program, according to Reuters "We must prepare for the worst," [Foreign Minister Bernard] Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."
Our Frankish friends across the sea aren't the only Western leaders focused on Iran, The Middle East Times reports:
The [U.S.] Centcom commander [Admiral William Fallon] believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."
This runs counter to occupation boss General David Petraeus' recommendation that the U.S. maintain large numbers of troops in Iraq for potentially years more. Fallon and Petraeus don't just disagree on matters of policy, the article points out:
In sharp contrast to the lionization of General David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad in March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that."
-------
For the public though, as on this picture, Petraeus, Fallon and Bush are always happily pictured together, all smiles.
(Note: it should be remembered here that Admiral Fallon once promised that "an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch". While I would definitely not put it past Admiral Fallon to make that kind of statement as part of a strategic deception plan, I would recommend keeping an eye on his statements or for any sudden "promotion" of Admiral Fallon to a Pentagon desk job).
Our Frankish friends across the sea aren't the only Western leaders focused on Iran, The Middle East Times reports:
The [U.S.] Centcom commander [Admiral William Fallon] believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."
This runs counter to occupation boss General David Petraeus' recommendation that the U.S. maintain large numbers of troops in Iraq for potentially years more. Fallon and Petraeus don't just disagree on matters of policy, the article points out:
In sharp contrast to the lionization of General David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad in March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that."-------
For the public though, as on this picture, Petraeus, Fallon and Bush are always happily pictured together, all smiles.
(Note: it should be remembered here that Admiral Fallon once promised that "an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch". While I would definitely not put it past Admiral Fallon to make that kind of statement as part of a strategic deception plan, I would recommend keeping an eye on his statements or for any sudden "promotion" of Admiral Fallon to a Pentagon desk job).
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Superior Derided Petraeus as Suck-Up, Opposed the Surge
by Gareth Porter
In sharp contrast to the lionization of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus' superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickens**t" and added, "I hate people like that," the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus' recommendation for continued high levels of US troops in Iraq during the summer.
The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century."
Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus' style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to the sources.
The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus' agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing US troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush's troop increase. According to a report in the Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell's office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus' role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia – the area for which Fallon's CENTCOM is responsible.
The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."
By the time Fallon took command of CENTCOM in March, Pakistan had become the main safe haven for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda to plan and carry out its worldwide operations, as well as being an extremely unstable state with both nuclear weapons and the world's largest population of Islamic extremists.
Plans for continued high troop levels in Iraq would leave no troops available for other contingencies in the region.
Fallon was reported by the New York Times to have been determined to achieve results "as soon as possible." The notion of a long war, in contrast, seemed to connote an extended conflict in which Iraq was but a chapter.
Fallon also expressed great skepticism about the basic assumption underlying the surge strategy, which was that it could pave the way for political reconciliation in Iraq. In the lead story Sep. 9, the Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" as saying that Fallon had been "saying from Day One, 'This isn't working.'"
One of Fallon's first moves upon taking command of CENTCOM was to order his subordinates to avoid the term "long war" – a phrase Bush and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates had used to describe the fight against terrorism.
Fallon was signaling his unhappiness with the policy of US occupation of Iraq for an indeterminate period. Military sources explained that Fallon was concerned that the concept of a long war would alienate Middle East publics by suggesting that US troops would remain in the region indefinitely.
During the summer, according to the Post Sep. 9 report, Fallon began to develop his own plans for redefine the US mission in Iraq, including a plan for withdrawal of three-quarters of the US troop strength by the end of 2009.
The conflict between Fallon and Petraeus over Iraq came to a head in early September. According to the Post story, Fallon expressed views on Iraq that were sharply at odds with those of Petraeus in a three-way conversation with Bush on Iraq the previous weekend. Petraeus argued for keeping as many troops in Iraq for as long as possible to cement any security progress, but Fallon argued that a strategic withdrawal from Iraq was necessary to have sufficient forces to deal with other potential threats in the region.
Fallon's presentation to Bush of the case against Petraeus' recommendation for keeping troop levels in Iraq at the highest possible level just before Petraeus was to go public with his recommendations was another sign that Petraeus' role as chief spokesperson for the surge policy has created a deep rift between him and the nation's highest military leaders. Bush presumably would not have chosen to invite an opponent of the surge policy to make such a presentation without lobbying by the top brass.
Fallon had a "visceral distaste" for what he regarded as Petraeus' sycophantic behavior in general, which had deeper institutional roots, according to a military source familiar with his thinking.
Fallon is a veteran of 35 years in the Navy, operating in an institutional culture in which an officer is expected to make enemies in the process of advancement. "If you are Navy captain and don't have two or three enemies, you're not doing your job," says the source.
Fallon acquired a reputation for a willingness to stand up to powerful figures during his tenure as commander in chief of the Pacific Command from February 2005 to March 2007. He pushed hard for a conciliatory line toward and China, which put him in conflict with senior military and civilian officials with a vested interest in pointing to China as a future rival and threat.
He demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as reported by IPS in May. Fallon questioned the military necessity for the move, which would have signaled to Iran a readiness to go to war. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
A crucial element of Petraeus' path of advancement in the Army, on the other hand, was through serving as an aide to senior generals. He was assistant executive officer to the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Carl Vuono, and later executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry Shelton. His experience taught him that cultivating senior officers is the key to success.
The contrasting styles of the two men converged with their conflict over Iraq to produce one of the most intense clashes between US military leaders in recent history.
In sharp contrast to the lionization of Gen. David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus' superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting.
Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickens**t" and added, "I hate people like that," the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.
That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on develop his own alternative to Petraeus' recommendation for continued high levels of US troops in Iraq during the summer.
The enmity between the two commanders became public knowledge when the Washington Post reported Sep. 9 on intense conflict within the administration over Iraq. The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century."
Fallon's derision toward Petraeus reflected both the CENTCOM commander's personal distaste for Petraeus' style of operating and their fundamental policy differences over Iraq, according to the sources.
The policy context of Fallon's extraordinarily abrasive treatment of his subordinate was Petraeus' agreement in February to serve as front man for the George W. Bush administration's effort to sell its policy of increasing US troop strength in Iraq to Congress.
In a highly unusual political role for an officer who had not yet taken command of a war, Petraeus was installed in the office of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, in early February just before the Senate debated Bush's troop increase. According to a report in the Washington Post Feb. 7, senators were then approached on the floor and invited to go McConnell's office to hear Petraeus make the case for the surge policy.
Fallon was strongly opposed to Petraeus' role as pitch man for the surge policy in Iraq adopted by Bush in December as putting his own interests ahead of a sound military posture in the Middle East and Southwest Asia – the area for which Fallon's CENTCOM is responsible.
The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran."
By the time Fallon took command of CENTCOM in March, Pakistan had become the main safe haven for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda to plan and carry out its worldwide operations, as well as being an extremely unstable state with both nuclear weapons and the world's largest population of Islamic extremists.
Plans for continued high troop levels in Iraq would leave no troops available for other contingencies in the region.
Fallon was reported by the New York Times to have been determined to achieve results "as soon as possible." The notion of a long war, in contrast, seemed to connote an extended conflict in which Iraq was but a chapter.
Fallon also expressed great skepticism about the basic assumption underlying the surge strategy, which was that it could pave the way for political reconciliation in Iraq. In the lead story Sep. 9, the Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" as saying that Fallon had been "saying from Day One, 'This isn't working.'"
One of Fallon's first moves upon taking command of CENTCOM was to order his subordinates to avoid the term "long war" – a phrase Bush and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates had used to describe the fight against terrorism.
Fallon was signaling his unhappiness with the policy of US occupation of Iraq for an indeterminate period. Military sources explained that Fallon was concerned that the concept of a long war would alienate Middle East publics by suggesting that US troops would remain in the region indefinitely.
During the summer, according to the Post Sep. 9 report, Fallon began to develop his own plans for redefine the US mission in Iraq, including a plan for withdrawal of three-quarters of the US troop strength by the end of 2009.
The conflict between Fallon and Petraeus over Iraq came to a head in early September. According to the Post story, Fallon expressed views on Iraq that were sharply at odds with those of Petraeus in a three-way conversation with Bush on Iraq the previous weekend. Petraeus argued for keeping as many troops in Iraq for as long as possible to cement any security progress, but Fallon argued that a strategic withdrawal from Iraq was necessary to have sufficient forces to deal with other potential threats in the region.
Fallon's presentation to Bush of the case against Petraeus' recommendation for keeping troop levels in Iraq at the highest possible level just before Petraeus was to go public with his recommendations was another sign that Petraeus' role as chief spokesperson for the surge policy has created a deep rift between him and the nation's highest military leaders. Bush presumably would not have chosen to invite an opponent of the surge policy to make such a presentation without lobbying by the top brass.
Fallon had a "visceral distaste" for what he regarded as Petraeus' sycophantic behavior in general, which had deeper institutional roots, according to a military source familiar with his thinking.
Fallon is a veteran of 35 years in the Navy, operating in an institutional culture in which an officer is expected to make enemies in the process of advancement. "If you are Navy captain and don't have two or three enemies, you're not doing your job," says the source.
Fallon acquired a reputation for a willingness to stand up to powerful figures during his tenure as commander in chief of the Pacific Command from February 2005 to March 2007. He pushed hard for a conciliatory line toward and China, which put him in conflict with senior military and civilian officials with a vested interest in pointing to China as a future rival and threat.
He demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as reported by IPS in May. Fallon questioned the military necessity for the move, which would have signaled to Iran a readiness to go to war. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
A crucial element of Petraeus' path of advancement in the Army, on the other hand, was through serving as an aide to senior generals. He was assistant executive officer to the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Carl Vuono, and later executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry Shelton. His experience taught him that cultivating senior officers is the key to success.
The contrasting styles of the two men converged with their conflict over Iraq to produce one of the most intense clashes between US military leaders in recent history.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Have the crazies finally been sent back the the basement?
On January 26th of this year I sent out a rather alarmist email to my friends mentioning the very real risk of a US aggression against Iran. Among other things, I wrote " Unless the current campaign of leaks from various US officials to the independent media is successful and the public outrage tips the balance (which is still quite possible - as the anti-war rally in Washington, DC planned for this Monday shows) this new war should start fairly soon, probably within a couple of months". Well, a couple of months has passed and the reaction against the war plans has been far stronger than I have anticipated.
While the independent media and US anti-war movement should get a lot of the credit for their truly herculean efforts efforts to prevent yet another Imperial war, a very different group of people has played a crucial role in the efforts to prevent a war: the old Anglo-Saxon oil lobby.
There have been for many years already two very different groups at the helm of power in the US, the so-called "Neocons" and what I call the old Anglo guard, mostly oil people represented by the likes of James Baker or Brzezinski. Under Bush the Older, these guys referred to the Neocons as "the crazies in the basement" and mostly used them to appease AIPAC and the Evangelical Right. Under Bush the Lesser, the "crazies in the basement" clearly took control from the Old guard at least until the compounded military defeats in Iraq, of course, but also in Afghanistan.
As early as in February there were indications that the US military was opposed to a new war and, according to some sources, US general even threatened to resign en masse should an order to attack Iran be given to them (see the very good article on this issue in The Sunday Times). According to one usually very well informed reporter, Gareth Porter, the US CENCOM Commander, Adm. William Fallon, has now issued a similar threat (see article below and note the highlighted sentence referring to the Neocons).
Does that mean that the war in Iran is off the table now? Not at all.
First, there is little doubt that the US Congress is firmly in Neocon hands, as is the US corporate media. Second, of all the Presidential candidates only two, Ron Paul and Mike Gravel, oppose the war Party - all the rest of them are trying to out-compete each other in bellicose statements in particular Giuliani and the Democrats (the latter can only be described as clueless, brainless and, in particular, spineless)
It appears that the Neocons are running into a combination of problems right now, unexpected both in nature (lawsuits) and magnitude (Anglo campaign of leaks and anti-Neocon publications). Distasteful as it may otherwise be, it appears that only a clear Anglo political victory (say, a huge political scandal involving Cheney) can prevent a war. The scary thing is that for the Neocons, there would be no better way to counter any real political risk to their power than a war with Iran.
So while an imminent aggression against Iran does appear to be less likely, it would take only one "Iranian Gulf of Tonkin" incident to trigger such a war and rally the US public opinion around the flag.
So it ain't over yet, but one can keep hoping that somebody - anybody - will beat back the 'crazies' to the basement from which they crawled out in 2001.
----------
Commander's Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup
by Gareth Porter
Adm. William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.
Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.
The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.
Fallon's resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.
Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, "As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job."
Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to "send a message to Tehran."
But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.
Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was "likely."
That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation, and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.
The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment program.
At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defense Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran's leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief March 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defense Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.
"He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it," says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon's message from a Pentagon official who had read it.
Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch."
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
Fallon's opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon's predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post's Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending "pointed messages" to Iran.
CENTCOM commander Fallon's refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on April 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, "There is no plan to overlap them at all."
The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.
Within two weeks, the administration's stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran's suspension of its uranium enrichment program as "extortion." But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorization for high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.
The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it "had leverage" on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.
Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.
Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.
(Inter Press Service)
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=10976
While the independent media and US anti-war movement should get a lot of the credit for their truly herculean efforts efforts to prevent yet another Imperial war, a very different group of people has played a crucial role in the efforts to prevent a war: the old Anglo-Saxon oil lobby.
There have been for many years already two very different groups at the helm of power in the US, the so-called "Neocons" and what I call the old Anglo guard, mostly oil people represented by the likes of James Baker or Brzezinski. Under Bush the Older, these guys referred to the Neocons as "the crazies in the basement" and mostly used them to appease AIPAC and the Evangelical Right. Under Bush the Lesser, the "crazies in the basement" clearly took control from the Old guard at least until the compounded military defeats in Iraq, of course, but also in Afghanistan.
As early as in February there were indications that the US military was opposed to a new war and, according to some sources, US general even threatened to resign en masse should an order to attack Iran be given to them (see the very good article on this issue in The Sunday Times). According to one usually very well informed reporter, Gareth Porter, the US CENCOM Commander, Adm. William Fallon, has now issued a similar threat (see article below and note the highlighted sentence referring to the Neocons).
Does that mean that the war in Iran is off the table now? Not at all.
First, there is little doubt that the US Congress is firmly in Neocon hands, as is the US corporate media. Second, of all the Presidential candidates only two, Ron Paul and Mike Gravel, oppose the war Party - all the rest of them are trying to out-compete each other in bellicose statements in particular Giuliani and the Democrats (the latter can only be described as clueless, brainless and, in particular, spineless)
It appears that the Neocons are running into a combination of problems right now, unexpected both in nature (lawsuits) and magnitude (Anglo campaign of leaks and anti-Neocon publications). Distasteful as it may otherwise be, it appears that only a clear Anglo political victory (say, a huge political scandal involving Cheney) can prevent a war. The scary thing is that for the Neocons, there would be no better way to counter any real political risk to their power than a war with Iran.
So while an imminent aggression against Iran does appear to be less likely, it would take only one "Iranian Gulf of Tonkin" incident to trigger such a war and rally the US public opinion around the flag.
So it ain't over yet, but one can keep hoping that somebody - anybody - will beat back the 'crazies' to the basement from which they crawled out in 2001.
----------
Commander's Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup
by Gareth Porter
Adm. William Fallon, then President George W. Bush's nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.
Fallon's resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration's Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon's resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.
The plan to add a third carrier strike group in the Gulf had been a key element in a broader strategy discussed at high levels to intimidate Iran by a series of military moves suggesting preparations for a military strike.
Fallon's resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and last January, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the U.S. conflict with Iran.
Explaining why he recommended Fallon, Gates said, "As you look at the range of options available to the United States, the use of naval and air power, potentially, it made sense to me for all those reasons for Fallon to have the job."
Bush administration officials had just leaked to CBS News and the New York Times in December that the USS John C. Stennis and its associated warships would be sent to the Gulf in January six weeks earlier than originally planned in order to overlap with the USS Eisenhower and to "send a message to Tehran."
But that was not the end of the signaling to Iran by naval deployment planned by administration officials. The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.
Two well-informed sources say they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported Feb. 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was "likely."
That would have brought the U.S. naval presence up to the same level as during the U.S. air campaign against the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, when the Lincoln, Constellation, and Kitty Hawk carrier groups were all present. Two other carrier groups helped coordinate bombing sorties from the Mediterranean.
The deployment of three carrier groups simultaneously was not part of a plan for an actual attack on Iran, but was meant to convince Iran that the Bush administration was preparing for possible war if Tehran continued its uranium enrichment program.
At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defense Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran's leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief March 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defense Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.
"He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it," says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon's message from a Pentagon official who had read it.
Fallon's refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch."
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, "You know what choices I have. I'm a professional." Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, "There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
Fallon's opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon's predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post's Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending "pointed messages" to Iran.
CENTCOM commander Fallon's refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on April 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, "There is no plan to overlap them at all."
The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.
Within two weeks, the administration's stance had already begun to shift dramatically. On Jan. 12, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had dismissed direct talks with Iran in the absence of Tehran's suspension of its uranium enrichment program as "extortion." But by the end of February, Rice had gotten authorization for high-level diplomatic contacts with Iran in the context of a regional meeting on Iraq in Baghdad.
The explanation for the shift offered by administration officials to the New York Times was that the administration now felt that it "had leverage" on Iran. But that now appears to have been a cover for a retreat from the more aggressive strategy previously planned.
Throughout March and April, the Bush administration avoided aggressive language and the State Department openly sought diplomatic engagement with Iran, culminating in the agreement confirmed by U.S. officials last weekend that bilateral talks will begin with Iran on Iraq.
Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's invocation of the military option from the deck of the USS John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf last week, the strategy of escalating a threat of war to influence Iran has been put on the shelf, at least for now.
(Inter Press Service)
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/porter/
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