The surprise resignation on Tuesday of Admiral William Fallon, the US military commander in the Middle East, followed a magazine article that portrayed the former fighter pilot as a lone officer taking on George W. Bush over his Iran policy.

In the flattering Esquire magazine article, Thomas Barnett, a former professor at the Naval War College, described the admiral as "the rarest of creatures in the Bush universe: the good cop on Iran, and a man of strategic brilliance".