- The odds of Bush bombing Iran have gone up dramatically
this week.
-
- There's just no other way to rationally interpret the
resignation of Admiral William Fallon as head of Centcom.
-
- Fallon resigned, and more likely was pushed out, after
Esquire published an article on him entitled "The Man Between
War and Peace." It said he was the one standing in the way of
Bush bombing Iran.
-
- He's not standing in the way any longer.
-
- Actually, his rival, General David Petraeus, is now more
powerful than ever. And as the Esquire article noted, Petraeus has
said: "You cannot win in Iraq solely in Iraq."
-
- Fallon seemed to understand the risk he was taking when
he took the job as head of Centcom. He told Esquire: "Career
capping? How about career detonating?"
-
- Fallon's fate as a weathervane for war with Iran has
been clear since the time of his confirmation, when he told a source
that an attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch." His watch
just stopped.
-
- He also said at the time, "There are several of
us trying to put the crazies back in the box."
-
- But the crazies are still bounding around outside the
box, and none crazier than Dick Cheney, who is off on a Mideast trip,
ostensibly to deal with Israel and Palestine and also with high oil
prices.
-
- But there are other purposes, as well. Cheney is visiting
Oman, "a key military ally and logistics hub for military operations
in the Persian Gulf," notes U.S. News & World Report. What's more,
according to U.S. News, "two U.S. warships took up positions off Lebanon
earlier this month." The Pentagon "would want its warships in
the eastern Mediterranean in the event of military action against
Iran to keep Iranian ally Syria in check and to help provide air
cover to Israel against Iranian missile reprisals," the story said.
"One of the newly deployed ships, the USS Ross, is an Aegis
guised missile destroyer, a top system for defense against air attacks."
-
- U.S. News cited three other signs why war is more likely
now: Israel's airstrike on Syria, Israel's war with Hezbollah, and
Shimon Peres's disavowal of unilateral action.
-
- Here's one more: The director of national intelligence,
Mike McConnell, testified to the Senate on February 5 that maybe
in last fall's NIE he overstressed the fact that Iran had halted
its nuclear weapons work. And maybe he overplayed the fact that Iran doesn't
know how to design a nuclear weapon just yet.
-
- And maybe he should have highlighted the fact that Iran
was still enriching uranium. And maybe he should have emphasized that,
therefore, Iran still poses a potential nuclear threat.
-
- "In retrospect," McConnell said, "I would
do some things differently."
-
- Like give Bush and Cheney exactly what they ask for.
-
- Something Admiral Fallon, to his credit, was not prepared
to do.
-
- http://www.alternet .org/audits/ 80493/
|
