Fallon's mistakes

Max Boot:

To see why Tuesday's "retirement" of Navy Adm. William "Fox" Fallon as head of U.S. Central Command is good news, all you have to do is look at the Esquire profile that brought about his downfall.

Its author, Thomas P.M. Barnett, a former professor at the Naval War College, presents a fawning portrait of the admiral -- a service he previously performed for Donald Rumsfeld. But evidence of Fallon's supposed "strategic brilliance" is notably lacking. For example, Barnett notes Fallon's attempt to banish the phrase "the Long War" (created by his predecessor) because it "signaled a long haul that Fallon simply finds unacceptable," without offering any hint of how Fallon intends to defeat our enemies overnight. The ideas Fallon proposes -- "He wants troop levels in Iraq down now, and he wants the Afghan National Army running the show throughout most of Afghanistan by the end of this year" -- would most likely result in security setbacks that would lengthen, not shorten, the struggle.

The picture that emerges of the admiral -- "The Man Between War and Peace," as the overwrought headline has it -- is not as flattering as intended. "He's standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war [with Iran]," Barnett writes. And:"While Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III ... it's left to Fallon -- and apparently Fallon alone -- to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: 'This constant drumbeat of conflict ... is not helpful and not useful. I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our utmost to create different conditions.' "

What Fallon (and Barnett) don't seem to understand is that Fallon's very public assurances that America has no plans to use force against Iran embolden the mullahs to continue developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorist groups that are killing American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is highly improbable that, as the profile implies, the president had any secret plans to bomb Iran that Fallon put a stop to. But there is no doubt that the president wants to maintain pressure on Iran, and that's what Fallon has been undermining.

By irresponsibly taking the option of force off the table, Fallon makes it more likely, not less, that there will ultimately be an armed confrontation with Iran.

...

Like a lot of smart guys (or, at any rate, guys who think they're smart), Fallon seems to have outsmarted himself. He thinks the war in Iraq is a distraction from formulating "a comprehensive strategy for the Middle East," according to the profile. The reality is that the only strategy worth a dinar is to win the war in Iraq. If we fail there, all other objectives in the region will be much harder to attain; if we succeed, they will be much easier.

That's something that Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno -- the architects of the surge -- understood, but that Fallon never seemed to get. Let's hope that his successor will have a better grasp of the region and of his role. This president, any president, deserves a Centcom commander who carries out his policies rather than undermines them.

I think Boot gets the essence of why Fallon had to resign. The article makes him appear arrogant and insubordinate. Perhaps he did not realize he was until he saw it in print, not that the author had that in mind either.

I also don't think he ever comprehended how his undercutting of the President's policy on Iran made a war more likely. I know Democrats don't seen to get that either. Meanwhile Iran appreciates the heads up and the gift of time to build their bomb.

The early draw down guys have to know are at least be careless about the consequences of an early draw down. They already have their excuse for the consequences, because they think it was a mistake to go into Iraq and the disaster that would befall Iraq following an early draw down would be used as proof of that point and not proof of how wrong an early draw down would be.

Mackubin Thomas Owen has more on Fallon's mistake.