1115.org

When Bush kept saying he listens to his generals, many of us laughed. But, of course, in hindsight, the fact was that we just didn’t understand what he meant.

His generals, though, always knew what he meant. And most of them were careful not to say anything worth listening to. And the ones who weren’t? Well, Bush was listening. And he heard them loud and clear.

The most notable case in point used to be Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. (who used to be the top American commander in Iraq before his job was given to one of the generals who did the best job listening to George Bush, and showing that he knew what Bush meant, one David H. Petraeus). Gen. Casey opposed the surge. A little too openly. And Gen. Casey became history.

As of yesterday, Gen. Casey will have to share top billing with CENTCOM Commander Adm. William J. Fallon. He opposed going to war with Iran. A little too openly. Right around the time that George Bush — and his many minions — was starting to play variations on a theme with the phrase “World War III”, Adm. Fallon had the bad judgment and poor taste to make public statements against the emerging drumbeat to war.

(As an aside, what Casey and Fallon have in common is Petraeus. Petraeus succeeded Casey and was Fallon’s subordinate. It was reported in September that Fallon had called Petraeus “an ass-kissing little chickensh*t” to his face, but Fallon denied it recently.)

As he was preparing to take command of CENTCOM (he assumed command in March 2007), he reportedly expressed firm opposition to a war against Iran:

As he was preparing to take command, Fallon said that a war with Iran “isn’t going to happen on my watch,” according to retired Army Col. Patrick Lang.

Lang, a former analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in an interview that he asked Fallon how he would avoid such a conflict. “I have options, you know,” Fallon responded, which Lang interpreted as implying Fallon would step down rather than follow orders he considers mistaken.

In the December interview, Fallon disputed the precise wording of the exchange. “That’s privileged information,” he said at first, later adding, “I can’t imagine making a statement like that.” He then recalled simply telling Lang that attacking Iran “wasn’t the first course of action” under consideration.

Then there was an Al-Jazeera interview broadcast on September 30, 2007:

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television in September, which Fallon himself had requested, according to a source at Al-Jazeera, he had said, “This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful.”

In November 2007, he spoke too frankly in an interview with The Financial Times:

“None of this is helped by the continuing stories that just keep going around and around and around that any day now there will be another war which is just not where we want to go,” he said.

“Getting Iranian behaviour to change and finding ways to get them to come to their senses and do that is the real objective. Attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice in my book.” … Adm Fallon declined to comment specifically on whether the US rhetoric was feeding the speculation, but said that “generally, the bellicose comments are not particularly helpful”.

It is in this context that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this yesterday, while announcing Fallon’s “resignation”:

He said “there is a misperception” that the admiral disagreed with the Bush administration’s policies towards Iran. “I don’t think there were differences at all,” Mr Gates said.

Let’s give Thomas P.M. Barnett (a former professor at the Naval War College, whose admiring article in Esquire precipitated Fallon’s departure) the last word:

And so Fallon, the good cop, may soon be unemployed because he’s doing what a generation of young officers in the U. S. military are now openly complaining that their leaders didn’t do on their behalf in the run-up to the war in Iraq: He’s standing up to the commander in chief, whom he thinks is contemplating a strategically unsound war.

And just as it was written, so did it come to pass. But the judgment of history on Adm. William J. Fallon is likely to be kind. The guy who listened to him? Not so much, I think.