Admiral resigns in protest against the Bush administration's plan to go to war with Iran.

The top US military commander for Iraq and Afghanistan resigned last night after weeks of behind-the-scenes disagreements with the White House over the direction of American foreign policy.

Admiral William Fallon, the head of US Central Command, left his post a week after a profile in Esquire magazine portrayed him as a dove opposed to President’s Bush’s Iran policy.

The article, entitled The Man Between War and Peace, described Admiral Fallon as as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear programme.

Announcing the resignation, Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, dismissed as “ridiculous” any notion that the departure signalled that the US was planning to go to war with Iran.

So here you go kids, let's see what you have learned in the last seven years of the Bush administration.

Admiral Fallon is leaving because:

a) He is having a "turf battle" with General Petraeus.
b) Because he is embarrassed by the Esquire magazine article that claims he is opposed to the Bush policies.
c) We are about to attack Iran and he wants nothing to do with it.

If you answered anything besides "c" then you need to give yourself ten demerits.

This guy has been fighting the good fight to keep us from making a mistake, the likes of our mistake in invading Iraq, and he is losing. And the reward for that kind of patriotism in this administration is to be kicked to the curb.

With all of our attention diverted to the drama of the Democratic primary process we leave the President and his administration to continue their destructive policies without any press coverage whatsoever.

And if it actually happens it is just one more thing we can blame on Hillary Clinton and her blind desperate bid to steal this nomination from Obama.

(I must give a hat tip to my visitor Larry who chided me for having my attention diverted by the titillating story of Eliot Spitzer and forgetting the big picture. Thanks Larry, even those of us who consider ourselves able to see the forest for the trees need to be reminded that the forest is vast and there is much happening beneath its foliage.)