{"id":2013,"date":"2010-06-24T03:29:08","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T10:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=2013"},"modified":"2010-06-24T03:29:08","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T10:29:08","slug":"obama-a-shrewd-gambit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/24\/obama-a-shrewd-gambit\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama: A Shrewd Gambit"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, I did not not expect Obama to appoint David Petraeus to replace the Teabagger of the General set, Stanley \u201cBite me\u201d McChrystal.  Although I disagree with the policy implications of his choice, I have to admire the way put the GOP in a position where they cannot challenge his decision. without making complete fools of themselves.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"24obama-petraeus\"<\/a> President Barack Obama has accomplished what many might have thought impossible just a few hours earlier. He has fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, his combat commander in Afghanistan, in such a way that not only will the general go unmissed but his name will likely soon be forgotten.<\/p>\n

Obama’s decision to replace McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus is a stroke of brilliance, an unassailable move, politically and strategically.<\/p>\n

On a political level, McChrystal has many fans inside Congress and the military, but Petraeus has orders of magnitude more<\/strong>. No one could accuse Obama of compromising the war effort, knowing that Petraeus is stepping in<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On a strategic level, while McChrystal designed the U.S. military policy in Afghanistan, Petraeus is its ur-architect. Petraeus literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency strategy while McChrystal was still running the black-bag hunter-killers of the special-ops command.<\/p>\n

Petraeus has also spent the last year and a half as head of U.S. Central Command, supervising military operations throughout the Persian Gulf and central Asia, including Afghanistan. McChrystal has built relations with political and military leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Petraeus has been building the same relations, plus some.<\/p>\n

Those who might have expected a scaling back in the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan will, and should, be disappointed. In his Rose Garden speech this afternoon, Obama made the point explicitly: "This is a change in personnel," he said, "but it is not a change in policy."<\/p>\n

One of those who might be disappointed in this remark\u2014and in the naming of Petraeus as McChrystal’s replacement\u2014is Michael Hastings, the author of the Rolling Stone article<\/a> that triggered this chain of events.<\/p>\n

The last, and less-noticed, part of the article, which was called "The Runaway General," not only amounted to a critique of the whole idea of counterinsurgency but also suggested that President Obama bought into the concept, ensnared by the wily Gen. McChrystal, without grasping its full implications<\/strong>\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Slate<\/a>><\/p>\n

I have to admit that when the Betrayus<\/em> ad, came out, I was one of the ones who jumped on the bandwagon.  I was wrong.  Every six months for three years,  GW ChickenHawk had slithered in front of the cameras to announce a brand new strategy, each with its flashy new name.  Without exception, the only thing new had been the name.  So when he trotted out David Petraeus, I had no reason so suspect anything different.  In fact, Petraeus did stabilize the situation.  US casualties are still down.  US troops have been withdrawn from combat, and most will be pulling out soon.<\/font><\/p>\n

I continue to oppose this war.  I expect counter insurgency to fail for the same reasons I gave yesterday<\/a>.  As long as Petraeus is saddled with Karzai, he\u2019s doomed.  But if anyone can get us enough breathing space to get out, he can.<\/font><\/p>\n

In Iraq, he bribed terrorists to stop being terrorists and join us instead.  Ironically, to do the same thing in Afghanistan may be problematic, because the GOP activists on SCOTUS just ruled that strategy to be a crime<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have to admit, I did not not expect Obama to appoint David Petraeus to replace the Teabagger of the General set, Stanley \u201cBite me\u201d McChrystal.  Although I disagree with the policy implications of his choice, I have to admire the way put the GOP in a position where they cannot challenge his decision. without […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}