Dick Cheney, the Neocon/Likudniks, and Rupert Murdoch want to "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" (as John McCain infamously sang) in the worst way.

The fact that Iran hasn't attacked or threatened us in any way, thus making an attack an international War Crime, isn't an obstacle for CheneyCo.

The fact that Congress hasn't been consulted, thus making an attack illegal under U.S. law, isn't an obstacle for CheneyCo.

The fact that oil prices would double and create a global depression isn't an obstacle for CheneyCo. (After all Cheney's cronies would just get richer.)

There's only one obstacle: the entire military chain of command thinks the idea is insane.

The top military person in the Middle East is the head of the Central Command, or Centcom. The current head of Centcom is Adm. William Fallon, who replaced Gen. John Abizaid. And here's what Fallon said about attacking Iran.

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

Fallon didn't say that lightly - he obviously meant it, and had the solid support of the chain of command when he said it.

Now that Fallon is on the job, he spends his time meeting with the leaders of the nations in his region, who are freaking out over the constant wardrums from CheneyCo. So today he's pushing back against those wardrums with an interview on Al Jazeera, of all places.

The commander of U.S. military forces in the Middle East does not believe current tensions with Iran will lead to war and urges for greater emphasis on dialogue and diplomacy.

“This constant drum beat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful,” Adm. William Fallon said in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, which made a partial transcript available Sunday.

Fallon, the head of U.S. Central Command, wraps up a seven-nation tour of the region on Tuesday that included stops in Persian Gulf countries, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Many of the talks with military and political leaders were dominated by worries about expanding Iranian influence and U.S. accusations that Iran is supplying arms and training to Shiite militiamen in Iraq.

“I expect that there will be no war and that is what we ought to be working for,” said Fallon during the Friday interview at Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. “We should find ways through which we can bring countries to work together for the benefit of all .... It is not a good idea to be in a state of war. We ought to try and to do our utmost to create different conditions.”

Al-Jazeera was expected to broadcast the complete interview later this week.

(Note to the blogosphere: how many nanoseconds will pass before rightwingers start attacking Admiral Fallon for appearing on Al Jazeera?)

Fallon's new boss is Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently replaced Gen. Peter Pace. Mullen doesn't like Iran's meddling in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he isn't eager to bomb Iran either:

The Navy admiral tapped to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday he favors a diplomatic approach in dealing with Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons, yet he offered few clues on how he would handle the war in Iraq.

Adm. Michael Mullen accused Iran, without being more specific, of giving aid to insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Still he called diplomacy "the right path."

 

So how is Cheney going to overcome the unified opposition from the chain of command? The same way he overcame the unified opposition of the CIA to his pre-war lies about Iraq - by creating a parallel structure that goes outside the chain of command and reports directly to him.

Rupert Murdoch's Times of London explains Cheney's evil plan:

THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.

Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.

It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.

Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.

It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz” Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare...

Cyberwarfare - how interesting! Is Project Checkmate planning to shut down the Internet as part of its bombing of Iran?

The US president faces strong opposition to military action, however, within his own joint chiefs of staff. “None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,” said a senior defence source.

That anonymous quote is just Murdoch's wishful thinking. The Joint Chiefs know Iraq was a disaster that they should have opposed. They know Iran will be 100 times worse, and they will not let themselves be "rolled" by Cheney once again. 

General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Just like we live with a nuclear-armed North Korea (thanks to George W. Bush) and Pakistan. We don't like them, but we have a whole lot more (and better) nukes than they do, so we can nuke them if they step out of line, and they know it.

Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney of the Iran policy committee.

McInerney is one of the more insane FOX News generals who got us into Iraq, so I seriously doubt he has any credibility left inside the Pentagon. Iran's uranium enrichment program is under strict IAEA supervision; if any of it ends up in the hands of terrorists, its chemical fingerprints will be easily traced, and the country that supplied it will be nuked by the U.S. and/or Israel.

“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”

Poor McInerney was so sure we would be greeted as liberators with flowers in Iraq. But after 4 years of deadly insurgency, even he is beginning to have his doubts we'd be welcomed into Iran. Reality bites, wouldn't you say?

Checkmate’s freethinking mission is “to provide planning inputs to warfighters that are strategically, operationally and tactically sound, logistically supportable and politically feasible”.

Ah there's the rub. After the Iraq Disaster, the American people and the people of the world are adamantly opposed to more imperialist wars. So the first job of Project Checkmate is to figure out how to start a war without firing up the "other superpower" that mobilized in cities around the world against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and would mobilize in 100 times greater force if we attacked Iran.

Its remit is not specific to one country, according to defence sources, but its forward planning is thought relevant to any future air war against Iranian nuclear and military sites. It is also looking at possible threats from China and North Korea.

Since both of these countries have nukes, attacking them is just a wee bit more difficult than attacking Iran. Perhaps Checkmate's plan is to put all the Bushes and Cheneys and Neocons into an underground bunker for the next 500 million years until it's safe to step outside again.

Checkmate was formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet threats but fell into disuse in the 1980s. It was revived under Colonel John Warden and was responsible for drawing up plans for the crushing air blitz against Saddam Hussein at the opening of the first Gulf war.

Warden told The Sunday Times: “When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we had access to unlimited numbers of people with expertise, including all the intelligence agencies, and were able to be significantly more agile than Centcom.”

He believes that Checkmate’s role is to develop the necessary expertise so that “if somebody says Iran, it says: ‘here is what you need to think about’. Here are the objectives, here are the risks, here is what it will cost, here are the numbers of planes we will lose, here is how the war is going to end and here is what the peace will look like”.

Umm, didn't anyone ask those questions before we invaded Iraq?

Warden added: “The Centcoms of this world are executional – they don’t have the staff, the expertise or the responsibility to do the thinking that is needed before a country makes the decision to go to war. War planning is not just about bombs, airplanes and sailing boats.”

No, it's about killing people, usually lots of them. And that's exactly why the Founding Fathers gave exclusive war-making power to Congress, not to the "Unified Executive."