The admirable admiral

He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance.

He is that rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance. His name is William Fallon, although all of his friends call him 8220;Fox,8221; which was his fighter-pilot call sign decades ago. Forty years into a military career that has seen this admiral rule over America8217;s two most important combatant commands, Pacific Command and now United States Central Command, it8217;s impossible to make this guy 8212; as he likes to say 8212; 8220;nervous in the service.8221;

Past American governments have used sabre-rattling as a useful tactic to get some bad actor on the world stage to fall in line. This government hasn8217;t mastered that kind of subtlety. When Dick Cheney has rattled his sabre, it has generally meant that he intends to use it. And in spite of recent war spasms aimed at Iran from this sclerotic administration, Fallon is in no hurry to pick up any campaign medals for Iran. And therein lies the rub for the hard-liners led by Cheney. Army General David Petraeus, commanding America8217;s forces in Iraq, may say, 8220;You cannot win in Iraq solely in Iraq,8221; but Fox Fallon is Petraeus8217;s boss, and he is the commander of United States Central Command, and Fallon doesn8217;t extend Petraeus8217;s logic to mean war against Iran.

So while Admiral Fallon8217;s boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as this century8217;s Hitler a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect, it8217;s left to Fallon 8212; and apparently Fallon alone 8212; to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last fall: 8220;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.8221;

What America needs, Fallon says, is a 8220;combination of strength and willingness to engage.8221;

Those are fighting words to your average neocon 8212; not to mention your average supporter of Israel, a good many of whom in Washington seem never to have served a minute in uniform. But utter those words for print and you can easily find yourself defending your indifference to 8220;nuclear holocaust.8221;

How does Fallon get away with so brazenly challenging his commander in chief?

The answer is that he might not get away with it for much longer. President Bush is not accustomed to a subordinate who speaks his mind as freely as Fallon does, and the president may have had enough.

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Excerpted from Thomas P.M. Barnett8217;s 8216;The Man between War and Peace8217; in Esquire, March 5