We know the plans have been drawn up, and are ready to go on 24 hours notice. We know that three carriers were supposed to overlap in the Gulf region over the next several months. Russian generals announced in their major news media that an attack would occur this April. So why didn’t it happen? What stopped Bush from ordering the next phase of Armageddon the Long War?

National security policy analyst (and now journalist) Gareth Porter thinks he has the answer: Admiral Fallon, the new commander of CENTCOM, is the reason Iran hasn’t gone BOOM! (yet).

Admiral William Fallon, then US President George W Bush’s nominee to head Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of aircraft-carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately that there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM, according to sources with access to his thinking.

Fallon’s resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration’s Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon’s resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.

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This is astonishing to say the least. Bush and Cheney apparently got suckered punched either by Gates, who recommended Admiral Fallon for the job as the head of CENTCOM, commander of all US forces in the Middle East and Southwest Asia, or by Fallon himself. They thought they were getting a big time Navy carrier guy who would be all gung ho to bomb Iran back to the stone age if they ordered him to do so. Apparently they “misunderestimated” their man.

Fallon’s resistance to a further buildup of naval striking power in the Gulf apparently took the Bush administration by surprise. Fallon, then commander of the US Pacific Command, had been associated with naval aviation throughout his career, and in January Secretary of Defense Robert Gates publicly encouraged the idea that the appointment presaged greater emphasis on the military option in regard to the US conflict with Iran. […]

…The plan was for the USS Nimitz and its associated vessels, scheduled to sail into the Gulf in early April, to overlap with the other two carrier strike groups for a period of months, so that all three would be in the Gulf simultaneously.

Two well-informed sources said they heard about such a plan being pushed at high levels of the administration, and Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh and Maziar Bahari reported on February 19 that the deployment of a third carrier group to the Gulf was “likely”. […]

But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief on March 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly worded message to the Defense Department in mid-February opposing any further US naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted. […]

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 said, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”

I guess Admiral Fallon took seriously his oath to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic …” And I think we know who the “crazies” are to whom he referred. Anyone and everyone at the Office of the Vice President, and the Pentagon’s Iranian Directorate. And Our Dear Leader, too. Can’t forget “The Decider” even if he only makes decisions that his sub-commander in chief has previously authorized.

Not much to add, except this: “Thank you for your service, Admiral Fallon. Thank you very much.” Let’s hope he stays on the job long enough to keep the crazies in their box until a saner President can take office in 2009, or possibly sooner. Because we know what the “crazies” want to do before the Presidency of George W. Bush passes into history.