CENTCOM Chief Admiral Fallon "Retires"

by Steve Soto

The White House bagged CENTCOM chief Admiral Fallon's scalp today, when he suddenly resigned because of a desire to retire. Of course it had nothing to do with his being the only sane voice left who wasn't drinking the "Attack Iran" Kool-Aid. And of course it had nothing to do with Fallon's disagreements with General Petraeus over how badly the Bush Escalation was destroying military readiness.

And as Troubled American noted in a different comments thread, this coincides with Cheney's visit next week to the region, with the usual stops in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to supposedly discuss our lack of influence on Middle East peace and oil prices. Note that the Russian foreign minister has now smartly scheduled his own visit to the region after Cheney leaves, to reinforce who is really calling the shots in the region since we have been bogged down in Iraq.

You can draw your own conclusions about what it all means, but the simple question is this: If the economy will be used against the GOP for the fall election, and oil is already going up anyway, what would be needed to allow "Bomb Bomb Iran" McBush to change the agenda?