[Texgreen] Bush hints of a wider war in Mideast

[Roger Baker]

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0109-29.htm



Published on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 by The Nation
Ominous Signs of a Wider War
by Michael T. Klare

On January 5 Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he was  
replacing Gen. John Abizaid as commander of the Central Command  
(Centcom)...

"The Baghdad situation requires more Iraqi troops," not more  
Americans, Abizaid said in a recent interview with the New York  
Times. For this alone, Abizaid had to go.

But there's more to it. Abizaid, who is of Lebanese descent and  
served a tour of duty with UN forces in Lebanon, has come to see the  
need for a regional solution to the crisis in Iraq--one that  
inevitably requires some sort of engagement with Iran and Syria, as  
recommended by the Iraq Study Group. "You have to internationalize  
the problem, you have to attack it diplomatically, geo- 
strategically," he told the Times. "You just can't apply a microscope  
on a particular problem in downtown Baghdad...and say that somehow or  
another, if you throw enough military forces at it, you are going to  
solve the broader issues in the region of extremism."

If engagement with Iran and Syria was even remotely on the agenda,  
Abizaid is exactly the man you'd want on the job at Centcom  
overseeing US forces and strategy in the region. But if that's not on  
the agenda, if you're thinking instead of using force against Iran  
and/or Syria, then Admiral Fallon is exactly the man you'd want at  
Centcom...