IT is necessary to read between the lines in the statements that have accompanied the resignation of Adm. William Fallon, commander of US forces in the Middle East (CentCom). They show that the Bush administration remains bent on aggression against Iran. Ever since the US Embassy hostage crisis, Iran has been seen by America as a malign power, needing to be contained. Such a containment objective must have been shared equally by Fallon and Bush.
It is over the tactics that the two men have fallen out. Bush, staring at a two-term legacy of failure, sees the chance to quit next January, with one last military huzzah. He made it perfectly clear to his hosts on his visit to the Gulf in January that he was intent on confrontation — rather than the negotiation that Iran’s Arab neighbors, his hosts, were urging on him. Here surely is the genesis of the rift between him and Fallon.
The admiral was being ordered to prepare an assault on Iran. This is a highly respected sailor who, in his previous command in the Pacific, earned a reputation for diplomacy as well as command. He is credited with establishing good military relations with the Chinese despite the growing suspicion with which each country views the other’s military. If, indeed, such orders as an assault on Iran came from the White House, Fallon will have immediately realized their madness.
A strike on Iran, almost certainly with cruise missiles and Stealth bombers, would be an unmitigated disaster for US interests in the Middle East. Iran would immediately unleash its radical Shiite attack units in Iraq, plunging that country into even bloodier chaos. It would also undoubtedly step up its intervention in Afghanistan, tipping what is an already precarious security situation toward outright failure. Tehran would also urge Hamas and Hezbollah into action against US interests and, for good measure, it might seek to punish Washington’s long-standing friends in the region. A Bush attack on Iran would, therefore, be a tactical disaster and, in the long run, might not even advance objectives that Fallon says he shares with his commander in chief. Fallon is too good an officer to make clear his real feelings of the real reasons for his resignation.
Defense Secretary Gates, having said what a wonderful officer Fallon has been, has added that it is “right” the admiral retire. Why “right”? Senior US military officers do not normally resign when they are profiled in the media. It is clear what has happened. Fallon has resisted one last crazy play by the Bush administration and fed his views, on an off-the-record basis to a journalist. The hope should not be that in retirement, Fallon will not leave it too long before he adds his voice to the other retired senior US commanders who have lambasted this learn-nothing US administration for its ignorant and stupid international conduct. An attack by Washington on Iran would be a colossal continuation of that policy and one from which it might well be impossible to recover.
