The notion that the Pentagon opposed Pelosi's trip is sheer nonsense. In my opinion, there is no possibility whatsoever that any member of Congress, and especially the Speaker of the House, would ever buck the Pentagon on anything. The Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — i.e., the national-security branch of the federal government — own and control Congress — lock, stock, and barrel, just as they own and control the president and the Supreme Court. 

This is not a new phenomenon. Once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, everyone in Washington knew that there was a new sheriff in town, one that wielded omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers, including the power of assassination. Given the overwhelming power of the new national-security branch of the government, the other three branches went into passive-and-support mode, especially after the Kennedy assassination in 1963. 

But this phenomenon clearly existed prior to that assassination. That was reflected by the term that President Eisenhower initially planned to use — "the military-industrial-congressional complex" — in the warning he issued to the American people in his Farewell Address in 1961.

Longtime readers of my blog know that for the past few years, I have been recommending a book entitled National Security and Double Government by Michael J. Glennon, who is professor of international law at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and who served as counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Everyone in America should read Glennon's book. It is a true eye-opener as to how the federal government is run, especially in foreign affairs.