Strangely, he was sending signals about the difficult situation of the Army before he was promoted. However, he was making somewhat aggressive-sounding remarks about the role of the Navy in the Persian Gulf. Makes it difficult to peg his stance. Best hope is that the overview role has shown him the difficult position of the ground forces occupying Iraq in the event of an enlarged war.

One good thing might be that he has no 'ownership' of the debacle. The whole thing was engineered by the Rumsfeld acolytes - the neo-Blitzkrieg crew. Apparently, they ignored the Navy altogether. It may have been a giant miscalculation on the part of the Cheney cabal: they thought that the Navy would be the spearhead for the Iran attack, so best to get them involved. (Of course, there may be a master plan: get the supplemental budget passed, build the super-bunker-busters, wait for a propitious event, go for it.)

Best hope is that things have evolved somewhat in the last few months. The Turkey/Kurd situation was tense, but not explosive. The Russians had not shown their exasperation with U.S. saber-rattling (maybe their SAMs are better than we know). Even the money crisis may be playing a role, by weakening the U.S. hold on 'allies' and trading partners.

paul spencer