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Writing at Asia Times, Conflicts Forum co-director Mark Perry, a former Newsday journalist, says Thomas Barnett's Fox Fallon piece:
Did anyone else detect the hand of a glossy magazine editor in the Barnett piece trying to overamplify what the story was about? It seemed like a likely scenario to me when I saw the hyperventilating "this is the one man standing between war and peace" frame. Come on.has to rank as one of the most embarrassing portraits of an American officer in US military history. Both for Barnett, as well as for Fallon. And that's saying a lot. Written in pseudo Tombstone style - a kind of vague signaling that this is just-between-us tough guys talk - Barnett presents a military commander who is constantly on the go, trailing exhausted aides who never rest ...
It's boorish and, very often, it's just plain wrong. Thus, Barnett: "If, in the dying light of the [George W] Bush administration, we go to war with Iran, it'll all come down to one man. If we do not go to war with Iran, it'll come down to the same man. 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."
Well, actually, yes - and no. The decision to go to war will come down to one man, but his name won't be Fox Fallon, it will be George W Bush. ...
But this little exchange, between Barnett and Fallon in Cairo, is what put the admiral on the retirement list: "Fallon sidles up to me during a morning coffee break. 'I'm in hot water again,' he says." And Barnett asks him: "The White House?" And Fallon nods his head: "They say, why are you even meeting with [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak." And Fallon goes on: "Why? Because it's my job to deal with this region, and it's all anyone wants to talk about right now. People here hear what I'm saying and understand. I don't want to get them too spun up. Washington interprets this as all aimed at them. Instead, it's aimed at government and media in this region. I'm not talking about the White House ... This is my center of gravity. This is my job."
Not anymore.
To hear Barnett talk about it, Fallon is not only a "man of strategic brilliance", he once actually stood between us and the apocalypse ...