Commander’s Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup
May 16th, 2007Brzezinski’s testimony indicates to me that the expansion of the conflict into Iran might not be allowed to happen. Don’t ask me how it will be stopped, but he is the mouthpiece of the people who run this show, not in appearance, but in fact.
—Zbigniew Brzezinski Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The war with Iran must be stopped by any means necessary… The full weight of this burden now rests squarely on the shoulders of the men and women of the U.S. military. Attempt to save America and the world from the diabolical lunatics who have subverted power, or parish in oblivion with the rest of us: Those are the options that every member of the U.S. armed forces must now consider.
—Bush Violation of FISA Law a Felony
Well, we’re still here.
Via: ipsnews:
At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran’s leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.
“He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it,” says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon’s message from a Pentagon official who had read it.
Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”.
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”
Fallon’s opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon’s predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post’s Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending “pointed messages” to Iran.
CENTCOM commander Fallon’s refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, “There is no plan to overlap them at all.”
The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.
Putting the “crazies” back in the box, eh? Several questions spring to mind.
Labeling them “crazies” implies that you knew they were crazy, yet you allowed them to get away with as much as you did. These people have been referred to as “crazies” for a long time, specifically, the “crazies” in the “basement.” Why even have “crazies” to begin with? Why were they allowed to sit in the basement all of those years? Who was protecting them? Who were their patrons? Also, these so-called “crazies” managed to insinuate themselves into several different administrations. If you read Colin Powell’s autobiography, [I know] you’ll notice he refers to them as being “tough” even though they weren’t in the military. This means they probably studied the military long enough to internalize the military mind, and could thus easily relate to soldiers, to gain and exploit their trust. Or at least that’s one version of it.
Another theory springs to mind. Suppose you have political dirty work you want or need done. You can’t go with the nice guys anymore, but you don’t want to look like a bad guy. So, instead, you get some third-rate bad guys to play bad guy for you. They’re either dumb enough to think they run the show, or they’re smart enough to play dumb so they can reap the benefits and counter-blackmail you to save their skins. The whole White House could be nothing more than some Matrix-like, bugged, compromised environment where everyone’s constantly fighting over how to pull the strings. Then, once the bad guys have pissed off everyone, you scapegoat them as an appeasement ritual to the public, have the men on the white horses come in and restore Camelot, and then pretend like the whole thing was an abnormality.
We’ll see what happens though. That is, if we aren’t already bored with the whole damned dog and pony show.
Yeah, they’re “saying” there’s going to be no overlap of carrier battle groups, but the “replaced” carrier will still be there when the “replacement” carrier shows up. That will be the time when something happens.
It’s all a hard cop/ soft cop routine.
Fallon plays “reasonable”. Cheney plays Cheney. If you don’t want to get Cheneyed, you do what the “reasonable” War Czar says.
Cheney is already negotiating with Iran and trying to ace the Russians out of their nuclear construction contracts. They met in Egypt behind a Hosni Mubarak smokescreen. It’s ok if Iran has nuclear power, and it’s ok if they enrich a little, so long as we do the hard stuff for them and get paid for it. Cheney is the most experienced American CEO at doing business with Iran, and did so all throughout the trade ban.
Haven’t seen Ahmad Chalabi around lately? It’s finally sunk into the Pumphead’s skull (Cheney) that Chalabi was Iran’s Man and royally suckered the Neocons. He baited American policy makers into using the US military to do Iran’s dirty work for it in Iraq. All their enemies are laid waste, all their threats are bottled up. Absolutely brilliant.
And yes, the US might still nuke or bomb the mullahs. To Cheney or anyone playing the Great Game, that threat has to stay “on the table,” even if Iran doesn’t believe we’ll do it. Other than quicker access to Iraq’s oil, it’s one of the few negotiating levers the US has over China and Russia.
Charlie has it right. Just how can anyone say with a straight face that there won’t be three carrier groups when in fact there has to be for this replacement to occur. But, of course, thats when some “incident” happens and someone will pipe up “Gosh!…Good thing there were those extra planes and missiles there… just in the nick of time!” Yeah, right.