I didn’t see anyone predicting that Gen. Petreaus would be taking over for Gen. McChrystal. I think that is because it is a demotion. I noticed early on in the Iraq War that the only places that seemed to be going well were wherever Petreaus happened to be stationed. Whether it was Najaf, the Sunni Triangle, or Mosul, things worked when he was there and fell apart as soon as he left. About the only thing I agreed with Bush about was his decision to promote Petraeus repeatedly. He was clearly our finest commander and I haven’t noticed anyone who rivals him. That’s one reason why MoveOn’s decision to attack him bothered me. The other reason was that it was totally predictable that the Democrats would disavow a direct attack on a commanding general, whether he deserved it or not. The anti-war movement never recovered momentum after that episode, nothing was accomplished, and it sowed division on the left.
But that is bygones, or it should be. Obama made the right decision today, and Petraeus deserves a lot of credit for accepting the responsibility for what looks to be a hopeless mission. Yet, if anyone can make lemonade out of the situation in Afghanistan, it is Petraeus.
That said, I still think we should abandon hope that Hamid Karzai will ever be able to govern the country on his own. And once we face up to that, coming home is an easier decision.
I’ll ask again here: is the leadership of Al Queada in Afghanistan? Is there, in fact, any identifiable group of militants in Afghanistan waging global jihad (“terrorists”)?
Truth be told, I don’t know. And I doubt that few outside the local communities know either, and those that do know are not likely to tell.
And anyone who claims to know absolutely probably doesn’t.
That said, most reports are that al Quaeda central command still is operating in the North Waziristan province of Pakistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan. There is a high probability that there is movement across that border. So technically, there might on occasion be al Quaeda in Afghanistan. And the probability of that being true rises as the Pakistani army moves through the Northwest Territories.
But the reason that Obama continues to talk about the Taliban is that the conflict between them, the Kabul government, and the Northern Alliance could erupt into a civil war as it did a decade and a half ago and the lack of a regime could provide the ability for al Quaeda or some other global jihadi group to set up command and training facilities there again. The US policy very much wants to leave a stable Afghanistan, even if the Taliban are one of the parties in the government. So far neither Kabul nor the Taliban are interested in that resolution. Most likely the Northern Alliance is cool to the idea as well.
Which is why most of the arguments for withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan revolve around the impossibility of creating stability in Afghanistan.
This is so nuts.
Petraeus’s best skill is self-promotion.
Yes indeed. It’s how one rises through the ranks of a large organization like the US military.
All the more reason to name him CinC TarBabyCom.
Only two top generals have made good presidents (commanders-in-chief) — George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower. I think Harry Truman had the best explanation of why.
Grant doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Just ask TNC.
Just an “amen” to this.
It is to Grant’s everlasting credit that when the KKK first arose, during his presidency, he stopped it by ordering the Attorney General and US Army to take action.
One of his other skills is lying about the number of troops he trained, & I hope it`s OK to mention here, the loss of tons & tons of weapons & ammo. 185,000 AK`s & 170,000 pistols & enough ammo to kill many Americans.
I should mention that those weapons killed many innocent Iraqis also.
Well, yes. Why do you think self-promotion has such a bad connotation?
Petraeus has always had his eye on the big prize – he plans to be President.
Well then, he’ll just have to “win” in Afghanistan whatever “win” means to his supporters.
My sense of this is that his presidential ambitions have been firmly spiked.
I’ve read a lot of disturbing things about Petraeus over time, some of them here.
But I’m certainly willing to give him a chance to get us the hell out of there.
There are a number of interesting things about this decision.
It destroys the conservative (or neo-con) dream of Petraeus as an American Caesar, a president like Douglas MacArthur would have been if he hadn’t been relieved of command.
It puts a box around McChrystal so that he cannot become a critic on Fox of Obama’s national security policies.
It puts Petraeus in charge of his own destiny. If it’s unwinnable, Petraeus failed. If there is a successful conclusion, Obama not Petraeus gets the credit. And it is a demotion, most likely for tolerating Odierno’s footdragging in Iraq.
It puts Republican Senators in a bind. They can’t use Petraeus’s confirmation to get his support for their criticism of Obama’s policy in Afghanistan. Obama’s call for unity makes them seem disloyal if they don’t move quickly on the Petraeus confirmation because uncertainly of command can appear to weaken national security. And could make Republicans look more interested in politics than national security.
It sends a message to Gates or anyone else in the upper level chain of command that disunity will not be tolerated. Wonder whether this will stem leaks to the Republicans on the defense committees in Congress for internal DoD political purposes.
And it does not change policy yet. But if policy were to change and withdrawal became likely, who better to sell it than the guy who couldn’t make it happen — General Petraeus. Nixon in China and all that.
I suspect there is a continuous review of strategy and policy that began with the Obama surge and continues. Policy and strategy might change, but don’t expect those changes to be public unless they are made so by politics or events.
Plua, if Obama does have hopes of leaving Afghanistan ASAP — by no means a certainty — Petraeus is now pretty much shut out of blabbing his opinions in public unless they follow the WH line. So intentionally or not, an early withdrawal is now set up better than it was before.
Tarheel Dem, thanks for the good, quick political analysis on this.
I think Obama made the right decision in removing McChrystal, even though I was prepared to cut him some slack if he kept McChrystal on. (Obama has plenty of other fights on his hands.)
You know, Obama’s a skinny guy with big ears and a funny name (as he sometimes describes himself). He’s also even-tempered and thoughtful.
A surprising number of people (particularly in our national politics—both practitioners and pundits) seem to make the mistake of thinking he’s not a tough fighter.
After watching Bill Clinton handle Newt Gingrich, I used to think Clinton was the best political counterpuncher in our times. After watching Obama over the past few years, it’s clear I was wrong.
Most critics’ problem with Obama is that he waits to be punched. They are enamored of the Republican strategy of preemptive sucker punches.
People want instant answers to everything it seems…I think Obama also practices ‘Rope-a-Dope’ at times on certain situations that have come up..to his advantage.
Obama couldn’t not fire him – insubordination. if he didn’t, he’d be stupid (he isn’t) and we’d really be in a mess, because military can’t function without chain of command
Unless that military is a junta. Of course he had to do this. The doubt among some was that he would fail to.
I don’t see that he had a choice. Though I did worry that he might try to arrive at some negotiated settlement that would end his credibility and effectiveness as CIC. But the civilian-controlled military is so vital to this country that he surely knew he had only one option. Still, that obsessive need to not blame anybody for anything kept nagging….
Your anxiety about the possibility that he might have negotiated something says that he indeed did have a choice. He chose the right one in this case. And limited the decision to the matter at hand.
Let’s do some sorting out:
Things were not going well anywhere in Iraq until Petraeus persuaded Bush to institute the so-called surge strategy. U.S. and Iraqi deaths plummeted to “acceptable” levels as a result, but Al-Maliki and his henchmen of course did not take advantage of the window of opportunity the surge provided to bring various factions together.
Petraeus was the master of his own destiny in Iraq. As TarHeelDem notes, he will be the master of his own destiny in Afghanistan.
It’s easy to look back at the pivotal moment in Obama’s presidency when he could have made the politically volatile decision to withdraw most troops and concentrate on surgical strikes against Al Qaeda and Taliban bigs, which happens to be what Biden — whom McChrystal dissed — advocated.
Obama didn’t make that decision for some good and some bad reasons, but at the end of the day that doesn’t matter. Petraeus has some flies on him, to be sure, but he is as good as they get, and he saved President Bush’s sorry ass in Iraq.
Alas, there will be no ass saving in Afghanistan. It’s still too big, too ungovernable and too corrupt for an outcome that even remotely resembles a victory.
Obama fired McChrystal but he should have fired the war when he could have.
If the US had withdrawn suddenly from Afghanistan, you would be seeing young girls with their faces destroyed by acid used by the Taliban.
Things like this aren’t easy and aren’t simple.
Bush got us into this mess and had no way out.
Obama has not used the word victory.
Obama thinks. That’a rare for a president.
Don’t forget that the world watches these things.
“If the US had withdrawn suddenly from Afghanistan, you would be seeing young girls with their faces destroyed by acid used by the Taliban.“
Ummmmm – we are seeing that now more than before the United States decided an invasion and occupation would be good for Afghan women.
Oh – and it is not only the Taliban who are doing things like that, you know. Among the perpetrators of much of these kinds of horrors are the United States’ best pals, including the Northern Alliance.
Continued occupation and continued military violence are not what Afghan women need.
.
(BBC News) – Premeditated
In Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, the number of acid attacks have been rising – and there are some facts now beyond dispute.
The largest numbers of victims come from the poorest backgrounds and are women who have rejected their husbands, employers or would-be boyfriends.
The attack is not committed in a fit of anger or “passion” as is popularly believed but is premeditated and intended to kill or maim. The attacker’s message in no uncertain terms is that if you can’t be mine, you won’t be any one else’s either.
Acid survivors foundation
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Petraeus used Iraq to burnish his reputation. There were a number of reasons for the reduction of violence after he took charge. The surge worked only to the extent that he was able to bribe Iraqi Sunnis to not go after Iraqi Shi’ites. The Maliki government took the initiative to demand and get a Status of Forces Agreement that set a definite timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. There was a temporary truce between the Maliki forces and the Badr forces.
It was Iraqi understanding of politics that was more responsible that Petraus’s surge. Having additional troops did not hurt in that it increased the power of the Iraqi government.
Afghanistan is going to be a more difficult situation. We are already bribing the Taliban, but in this case for safe passage of military materiel to US troops. Karzai has not yet asked for a Status of Forces Agreement and it is doubtful that anything short of NATO withdrawal would change the situation on the ground. Karzai blew his opportunity for a unity government by stealing an election.
Afghanistan is neither ungovernable nor irretrievably corrupt. It has become so in the past 40 years because of foreign meddling in Afghani affairs. Thirty years of occupation, civil war, occupation again have destroyed much of the infrastructure and put everybody in a “doing what is needed to survive” state of mind. The destruction of the economy except for opium production has undermined trade.
And when Americans use the term “victory” it would be helpful to define what that means. You are not going to see Gen. Petraeus meeting Mullah Omar on the deck of the USS Missouri and getting him to sign an unconditional surrender. War is not about victory, it is about politics. Solve the politics and victory or defeat is irrelevant.
“There were a number of reasons for the reduction of violence after he took charge.“
That is correct, and none of them had anything to do with his great The Surge(TM) campaign.
I disagree somewhat with some of your specifics, especially this one: “The surge worked only to the extent that he was able to bribe Iraqi Sunnis to not go after Iraqi Shi’ites.” The Sunnis who were bribed were mainly going after the occupying forces and Iraqi collaborators, not Shi`as per se. In fact, b that time the Shi’ite extremist militias (including militias connected with the so-called Iraqi government) were going after Sunnis, Christians and each other. This was especially the case in Baghdad and Basra and environs.
There had been a lot of mutual ethnic cleansing going on in Baghdad, which turned most mixed neighborhoods into all Sunni, and all Shi`a, or nearly so, but that was just about finished when The Surge(TM) began, which is one of the major reasons for the decrease in Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence. Also, Muqtada Sadr’s group were ordered to back off, and that contributed to the decrease.
There is one virtually unknown and quite revealing aspect of The Surge(TM) that tells you a lot about Petraeus. In 2004 Sunni tribal and village leaders from the stupidly-called “Sunni triangle” and other predominantly Sunni areas had simultaneously been fighting the occupation forces and the groups that the Americans had propagandistically dubbed “foreign fighters”, “Al Qa`eda”, “Zarqawi followers”, and so on. The U.S. military made a propaganda stories about this from time to time, claiming it was an indication that “the Soooneees” were warming up to being liberated. It wasn’t. It was an indication that as unhappy as they were with the Americans they were also unhappy with the Sunni extremists who had been empowered by the overthrow of the government and the utterly clueless way the U.S. was conducting the occupation.
Starting in 2004 Sunni tribal, town, and village leaders began approaching the Americans to ask for assistance in fighting the extremists. The Americans repeatedly rebuffed them – until Petraeus got the “brilliant and innovative” idea of The Surge(TM). You have to wonder how many lives – American AND Iraqi – would have been saved had the Americans taken advantage of Iraqis’ several years’ worth of attempts to cooperate against the so-called “foreign fighters”, “Zarqawi followers”, “Al Qa`eda”, etc.
Some people might say that Petraeus was brilliant in timing The Surge(TM) so as to make it look as if that was what caused the downturn in violence, but I think it was just lucky coincidence. I haven’t seen any sign that anyone in the military or the U.S. government really has a clue about Iraq, Iraqis, Iraqi society, or the real dynamic they set in motion.
Good point.
.
Cutting to heart of Obama’s dilemma: ‘Can the war be won?’
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“U.S. and Iraqi deaths plummeted to “acceptable” levels as a result [of The Surge(TM)]…“
Not really. The decrease in reported deaths was mainly the result of a set of circumstances that coincided with The Surge(TM), but not of The Surge(TM) itself.
If one wants us to get out asap, is Petraeus a good choice? It seems like he’s considered a God of sorts, and if he starts requesting more time and troops, what does Obama do?
Good question jdw. My recollection of Obama’s Afghanistan policy review last year was that he basically did the following:
Obama’s planning to pull a significant number of US troops out of one war (Iraq) this year. It looks to me like he’s set up a timetable under which he’ll be pulling a significant number of troops out of Afghanistan next year—and he has his generals publicly committed to that strategy.
I saw nothing today that indicated we’ll be out of Afghanistan next year. People claiming that putting Petraeus in charge somehow signals that are silly. This was a full throated, all-in commitment to occupying Afghanistan. I conclude that whenever Obama’s presidency ends, there will be 50,000+ American troops in country.
Torpid Bunny,
That`s what made me listen a bit more closely as I was listening to the speech this morning.
I kept waiting for a re-issuance of his promise to be out in 2011, but all I got was a crappy T-shirt & a commitment to go finish the mission type, gung-ho Al queda terrorist secure our nation stuff, speech.
I`m very unimpressed with warmongers, & hope he isn`t one, but simply a mention of 2011 would have worked with me, at least for a little while.
I think he may have made a deal with Petraeus to get him to accept having to go back over to Afghanistan, giving him more time to polish up his military record.
I do fear though that the health of Petraeus is in jeopardy, (having breathed in too much depleted Uranium) for him to last even till the summer of next year.
He`ll soon be replaced.
“I`m very unimpressed with warmongers, & hope he isn`t one…“
Well, let’s see.
As a candidate he made it clear that he planned to greatly increase the military budget, and to increase the size of the military by somewhere around 100,000.
One of his first acts within hours of being sworn in was to sign off on drone attacks inside Pakistan – oh yes, and those attacks killed a number of civilians, and may or may not have “taken out” one or more “suspected badguys”. Since then he has certainly escalated military violence in Pakistan far above the levels under Bush.
He has widened the “war on terror” to include attacks on Yemen.
He has escalated the war in Afghanistan.
He has engaged in far more bellicose speech against Iran than Bush ever did in both amount and volume, and it seems clear that he has been conducting covert operations in Iran. And now it is looking more and more as if he may have, at the very least, given a wink and a nod to Israel regarding attacking Iran.
As for Iraq, it was clear to anyone who looked beyond the pretty sound bytes that he never intended to end the occupation, merely to downsize and rebrand it to make it less annoying to Americans. When he leaves office, whether it is after one or two terms, the United States will still have a very significant military presence in Iraq, and will continue to control Iraq politically and economically from that imperial citadel on the Tigris that they laughably call an embassy.
I’m not yet ready to say he is a war monger, I’m just sayin’…
Hurria,
I know all of these things….I just hoped to wake up & see I was wrong, & that my hopes were well founded.
I now find I`ve been awake all along & these facts are real.
I`m trying very hard to see in Obama the man I hoped he was, but
I think he may soon prove me to be the idealist I am, & wrong.
I believe things would be very different had he not inherited these wars & would not have lied this country into them, though he possibly had a choice to shut both down when he took office. That`s the only points I give him.
As I mentioned up-thread, I think he should have mentioned his commitment to his withdrawal policy for 2011.
I think he is a “good” guy but is actually a puppet of a higher order of power. Me, if I found out I was being played, I`d play back hard, then walk away.
There should be many ways he could play the players, if that`s the case I think it to be.
I won`t be pressing my bets.
To me he looks like a typical American President, better than many in some ways, no better than any in most ways. I didn’t expect much more than that. After all, the guy is a master politician. What is saddest perhaps is the complete disconnect between the rhetoric and the action. I am thinking in particular of his speech in Cairo. Personally, I am not a bit impressed by political rhetoric, so I greeted it with appropriate skepticism, or perhaps cynicism is more accurate. That is the problem when you have a brilliantly convincing speech-maker as President. At least with Bush you had someone who was pretty transparent, and you knew what to expect.
The problem is that people expected that Obama would be different from every other American politician who has managed to be elected President when he is really just another American politician, but with an exceptionally good mind, and a golden tongue.
“he is really just another American politician, but with an exceptionally good mind, and a golden tongue.”
Obama does have a golden tongue, but a “good mind” in my book evokes a humanitarian with the wisdom of Solomon, whereas good minds have been used for nefarious purpose in the past.
Bush I always saw as an imbecile, Obama, not so much, but I admit to have been wrong before.
A “golden tongue” means not much to me, looking back on evil orators who had hordes, rushing to fulfill their dark prophesies.
A man with such qualities, I expected much more from.
I`m rapidly becoming disillusioned with him of late, but am holding back, with much difficulty, before I file him as just another American politician.
I`m really trying, but he`s really trying me.
Hurria, it`s always nice talking to you.
.
2010-06-007For Immediate Release
Statement by General Stanley McChrystal
This morning the President accepted my resignation as Commander of U.S. and NATO Coalition Forces in Afghanistan. I strongly support the President’s strategy in Afghanistan and am deeply committed to our coalition forces, our partner nations, and the Afghan people. It was out of respect for this commitment — and a desire to see the mission succeed — that I tendered my resignation.
It has been my privilege and honor to lead our nation’s finest.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Standard face-saving bullshit.
Did Gibbs write the draft?
lieberman?