Admiral William J. Fallon
Commander, U.S. Central Command
"...an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch... You know what choices I have. I'm a professional. There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
"...an attack on Iran will not happen on my watch... You know what choices I have. I'm a professional. There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
--(Anonymous Source)
Retiring?
posted by Vigilante at 3/11/2008 06:50:00 PM
8 Moderated Comments:
The crazies are still out of the box!
Let's hope nothing happens before January 2009.
Admiral Fallon was by no means the only military person against jumping into a war with Iran. He is not even the most powerful. Mullen and Gates are both against. The Esquire article was simply the most recent thing. No one looking at this here in the blogosphere knows the whole story. The whole story will not be pieced together for months. But the insinuations that Fox is out because Cheney wants to go to war with Iran (said other places, not here) is simply ridiculous.
Has anyone heard who his replacement will be? And is the dude one of the crazies rolling around on the floor?
BostonMaggie is in good company. Juan Cole believes Fox has been thrown out of the Iraqi hen house, as opposed to the Persian chicken coop.
Fallon is a man of great courage. He had to know his career was at an end when he made these anti-Bush remarks. Had Bush been able to he no doubt would have had him executed, e.g. Stalin and Hitler.
Martin Walker is global affairs columnist for United Press International and a senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. Writing for Radio Free Europe, here are his money paragraphs:
The other theory to explain the resignation is that it concerns not Iran, which appears to be on the White House's back burner, but a dispute over troop levels in Iraq and the urgent need for more troops to cope with the expected spring offensive by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sources in Congress and in the Pentagon have suggested that Fallon, whose Central Command includes the Afghan and Iraqi theaters, saw the situation improving in Iraq and deteriorating in Afghanistan, and wanting to redeploy troops accordingly.
This was staunchly opposed by the U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, whose "surge" of troop reinforcements and new counterinsurgency strategy have sharply reduced the violence and brought some relative stability in that country. There is now considerable speculation that Petraeus will be promoted to replace Fallon as commander-in-chief of Central Command, and replaced as commander in Iraq by Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, who directed the "surge" on the ground.
It is no secret among senior officers that there is little love lost between Fallon and Petraeus, nor that Fallon, from his previous job as commander-in-chief of Pacific Command, saw U.S. relations with China as being far more strategically important in the long run than the Iraq and Afghan engagements
Fallon is unusual in that, while in uniform, conducted on-site diplomacy in the Middle East. From the widely-cited Thomas Barnett Esquire article, we get an impression of Fallon as a diplomat as pertains to China during his Pac-Com assignment:
Early in his tenure at Pacific Command, Fallon let it be known that he was interested in visiting the city of Harbin in the highly controlled and isolated Heilongjiang Military District on China's northern border with Russia. The Chinese were flabbergasted at the request, but when Fallon's command plane took off one afternoon from Mongolia, heading for Harbin without permission, Beijing relented.
The local Chinese commander was beside himself. It was the first time in his life he had ever met an American military officer, and here he was at the bottom of a jet ramp waiting for the all-powerful head of the United States Pacific Command to descend. Then, to his horror, he realized that Fallon had brought his wife, Mary, along for the trip. Scrambling to arrange the evening banquet, the Chinese commander brought his own wife out in public for the first time ever.
When the time came for dinner toasts, after the Chinese commander thanked Mrs. Fallon for coming, the admiral returned the favor by thanking the commander's wife for her many years of service as a military spouse. The commander's wife broke down in tears, saying it was the first time in her entire marriage that she had been publicly recognized for her many sacrifices.
And there was peace in our time.
This article is well worth a read. Fallon, because of the breath of his strategic vision, is a terrible countervailing presence to Busheney to have lost. Hopefully, with a Progressive Democratic administration within a year, 'Fox' can be returned to government service.
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