Although several of the retired US generals criticizing defense secretary Don Rumsfeld have been doing so for some time, a question arises with respect to the others: “Why now?”
So we’ll ask: Why now? Rumsfeld’s war plan has been the subject of hostilities since before the invasion, when he and his deputy at the time, Paul Wolfowitz, publicly dressed down Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki for suggesting to Congress that the occupation would require several hundred thousand troops. Since then, the administration and Rumsfeld have made any number of bonehead decisions that put the military at greater risk than might otherwise have been the case, and of course the administration’s policies on torture and other laws of war issues have led to episodes such as Abu Ghraib that must be seriously distressing to most career officers.
Yet the rebellion is only boiling over now, when the likelihood that any Rumsfeld replacement will radically change the administration course in Iraq is nil. A common criticism of the military is that they tend to fight the last war, not the next one. Maybe the generals are speaking out with that maxim in mind. Maybe they’re speaking to Rumsfeld’s and the administration’s plans for Iran.
The timing works, given the past week’s public tumult in connection with the possibility of an aerial assault on Iran, with or without nuclear weapons. And there’s a causus belli: The service branches represented by the generals who are speaking out against Rumsfeld are the ones most at risk of any regional blowback from such an attack, by virtue of being staked out in the desert in a country populated by millions of people who will likely resent an assault on their coreligionist neighbors.
So it seems likely that the generals have adopted the Bush administration doctrine of preemption, and are moving to nuke Rumsfeld before he gets them into another, even more ill-advised war.
Let’s assume that’s the case: what does it say about the evolution of the administration’s military plans against Iran? How far along would those plans have to be to provoke such an unprecedented outburst from retired generals who appear to be speaking on behalf of their colleagues who remain on active duty?
Let’s also assume that the effort to dump Rumsfeld is, as we suggested previously and now seems obvious, a coordinated one. That would make yesterday the beginning of the Shock and Awe phase. What do they have in store for the future week?
This has only just begun to get interesting.
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Update: others heave broken this ground ahead of us, including most notably Digby.
Makes sense that they would be speaking out now if they had any idea that an attack on Iran was in the works. These are not stupid men by any stretch of the imagination.
I personally think that Rummy needs to go but at this point his replacement could and would probably be a bigger problem. How many of Bush’s imcompetant friends are left needing a job?
It’s easy to wine, dine and otherwise schmooze the R’s, D’s, and media, but the military brass is another story.
Rumsfield is responsible for the debacle in Afghanistan and Iraq, for Abu Gharib and camp Xray, for the leadup to Iran. This man has undermined the armed forces, and led the president astray. Throw the garbage out!
Thank God there are those in the military with courage and integrity. IMHO, the revolt is ALL about crossing the line with Iran. Bad as Iraq is, starting WWIII by using nuclear weapons against Iran, is magnitudes worse. And it does appear that politicians have no interest in advocating for American, rather than personal, interests.