FALLON WAS RIGHT

As the dust settles after the abrupt resignation of Adm. William Fallon as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, everyone seems to agree that the Bush administration let him know that it was time to go. But differences remain as to exactly why.

It was clear that his public statements about President Bush’s policies and strategies involving Iran and Iraq rankled the White House and, to some extent, his military superiors. He repeatedly questioned the administration’s scarcely veiled threats of a military strike against Iran unless it halted its program of refining uranium, a process that could lead either to producing nuclear weapons or peaceful nuclear power. He also raised questions about the administration’s insistence on delaying indefinitely any major withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

Attention focused on an article about the admiral in the current issue of Esquire magazine that seems to have exaggerated and sharpened his views. The headline was “The Man Between War and Peace.” The article began: “If, in the dying light of the Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it’ll all come down to one man,” referring to Adm. Fallon. “If we do not go to war with Iran, it’ll come down to the same man.”

The article relied heavily on comments the admiral made last fall on the Arab television station Al Jazeera. He said, referring to the many administration statements about Iran, that “this constant drumbeat of conflict is one that strikes me as not helpful, not useful for the people, and I wish we could get moving to things that are more constructive for the region.”

President Bush, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in seeming agreement, have all favored diplomacy and described military action against Iran as only a last resort.

But what may have most offended the administration was Adm. Fallon’s further remark, that “I expect that there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for.” In making that statement, he was questioning the central thrust of the Bush administration’s policy toward Iran: that the United States is determined to go to war if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Vice President Dick Cheney said last October that “we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and warned of “serious consequences” if it refused to stop enriching uranium. A few days earlier, the president warned that an Iran with nuclear weapons evoked the threat of “World War III.”

Much of the Middle East is seething with suspicion that the U.S. is on the verge of a military strike against Iran. And many U.S. military leaders realize that American forces are already stretched thin with the unfinished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meaningless threats are no match for careful diplomacy.

Mr. Bush should have listened to the wise counsel of Adm. Fallon rather than presiding over the obvious decision to push him out.