Gen. Petraeus Replaces Gen. McChrystal After McChrystal Sacked By White House

By now most pundits online have weighed in on the sacking of Gen. Stan McChrystal and President Obama's choice of Gen. David Petraeus as his replacement.

McChrystal was a special ops guy who was best at operating at the behest and discretion of Petraeus and his staff. The special ops is subordinate to the larger role of dealing with the entire theater of operations and all that entails. You need someone who can see the big picture and understands counterinsurgency strategy.

Independent journalist Michael Yon's postings and interactions with McChrystal and his staff showed that he wasn't up to the task of dealing with the entire theater. And Yon was calling McChrystal out as early as April. Yon thought he was in over his head. Clearly, he didn't get the politics.

Soldiers (or Generals) may excel in one role but do poorly in others. It happens. It's the bad judgment on McCrystal's part that irks me - that he enabled his underlings to openly question the chain of command like that. One simply doesn't question the civilian leadership even if you think that they're wrong. That is a recipe for dismissal and disaster. We've seen countless examples of generals bristling at civilian leadership and Presidents who sack generals who do not get the job done.

For instance, look at President Lincoln sacking general after general until he could find one who would lead and bring the South to defeat - Gen. Grant. Or, look at Gen. Patton and the way he bristled at civilian leadership following World War II. Or Gen. MacArthur's sacking following his dustup with President Truman over the prosecution of the war on the Korean peninsula.

So, even with McCrystal's problems, that doesn't absolve President Obama either. It also speaks poorly of Obama's choice in the first place. He judged his character and fitness poorly. The President also has enabled far more restrictive rules of engagement that puts US soldiers at risk and puts the onus on the troops on the ground. Those policies have to change, but to his credit, the President has picked the best person possible to replace McCrystal. That would be Gen. Petraeus.

The Obama Administration's policy in Afghanistan wasn't particularly good before, and it's currently in disarray. Hopefully Gen. Petraeus will find a way to fix things and get things back on to a positive track. Petraeus had a knack for knowing when and how to use the forces and politics at his disposal. After all, he was the one who figured out how to turn things around in Iraq via the surge of forces and gained the trust of his troops and the nation.

In the theater, having a general in charge who commands the kind of attention and respect that Petraeus does is invaluable. That will go a long way to improving matters with the Afghan govt - those warlords and local leaders who might lean towards US assistance against the Taliban, etc.

For those online who are siding with McChrystal because Obama sacked him makes little sense. McChrystal was wrong and was insubordinate and such actions cannot be tolerated in the chain of command. Obama had little choice but remove McChrystal. Doing anything else would have undermined the President's role as commander in chief. The Pentagon also couldn't and shouldn't tolerate that kind of insubordination in its ranks because it violates the chain of command and the fact that civilian leadership of the military is at the heart of the nation's national defense structure.

If McChrystal was truly at odds with the White House over the policy choices in Afghanistan, there were ways for him to make them known without being disrespectful of the President or airing the dirty laundry in a Rolling Stone interview.

If he thought the rules of engagement were too tight, he should have demanded changes. If he thought the timetables and political restrictions were too onerous, he should have demanded changes.

This, he did not do.


That doesn't mean that President Obama was right either. He was the one who made the judgment call to select McChrystal for the position despite some evidence going in that he wasn't right for the job. That reflects poorly on the President.

Correcting that error shows that the President is capable of learning from his mistakes.

Still, there is one thing (of many) that worries me.

When there are big problems with the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, all roads seemingly lead to one guy as the problem solver - Petraeus. That's not good for the long term. Is there no one else in the military upper echelons that can take on this job? One has to wonder if Gen. Petraeus is being stretched to thin in his assignments and duties.

We have to have more expertise and competence and faith in the military's upper echelons than just Gen. Petraeus. I'm glad we've got him where we do, but it is troubling that there aren't more who can shoulder that burden.

Gen. McChrystal In Hot Water Over Rolling Stone Interview: UPDATE: Offered Resignation

These are the kinds of comments that should lead to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's dismissal as head of operations in Afghanistan. McChrystal and his subordinates gave interviews to Rolling Stone magazine in which he made disparaging comments about the Obama Administration and other top officials.

In the magazine profile, unidentified McChrystal aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The first victim in the growing controversy was the Pentagon's PR official who set up the interview with McChrystal. NBC reported that Duncan Boothby, a civilian member of the general's public relations team, was "asked to resign."

According to administration officials, McChrystal was ordered to attend the monthly White House meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in person Wednesday rather than over a secure video teleconference. He'll be expected to explain his comments to Obama and top Pentagon officials, these officials said.

President Obama was described as "furious" about the remarks while the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, told McChrystal of his "deep disappointment" in a conversation late Monday, a spokesman said.

Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had confidence in McChrystal's ability as a general. However, he said the issue was whether the article would impact his ability to have a relationship with Obama and the rest of the national security staff.

Kerry, speaking on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," described the remarks in the article as a "mistake" and "poor judgement" by the general and some of his staff. He declined to say whether McChrystal should step down.

These are the comments that should not be stated until one leaves office since the General is subordinate to the President and any disagreements he may have on policy should have been made through the proper channels.

McChrystal's administrative style has allowed his aides to openly challenge the official US policy in Iraq and questioned the very policy makers who are in charge.

That is insubordination and the White House has to take Gen. McChrystal to task for those comments and allowing the situation to present itself.

Still, for those who have followed McChrystal's background, it isn't surprising. Michael Yon, an independent journalist who has covered the Afghan and Iraq campaigns and has embedded with multiple units in both theaters of operation since 2001 found McChrystal to be wanting:

Yon believes the war can still be won, but that a change of command is in order. At this level of warfare, he says, "McChrystal is like a man who has strapped on ice skates for the first time. He might be a great athlete, but he's learning to skate during the Olympics." Yon adds that publicly denouncing the commanding general of a war is not an easy thing for him to do, especially considering it means crossing swords with General Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, two men he greatly admires. Indeed, if anyone can turn this war around, Yon believes it is General Petraeus. He concedes such a return to the battlefield is unlikely, and suggests another general whose name fewer people have heard. "General James Mattis from the Marines. I get a good feeling about Mattis but I don't know. General Petraeus is a known entity and he is solid gold."

Not only is McChrystal is out of his element, but his management style has opened up a can of worms at a critical juncture in the Afghan war against the Taliban.

This is an unforced mess that President Obama must deal with forthwith, and it could mean a delay in his plans to reduce the size of forces in Afghanistan after 2011.

Much more fundamentally, the need for solid leadership at the highest levels of the Afghan theater of operations to keep the hammer down on the Taliban and to continue making progress against Taliban inroads requires a solid determination without distraction.

McChrystal and his staff has created a major distraction. That is intolerable.

UPDATE:
McChrystal apparently saw an advance of the story that ran in Rolling Stone and didn't object to the piece. That puts his official stamp on the piece, and adds to his complicity in the remarks.

Eric Bates, the magazine’s editor, said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that McChrystal was informed of the quotes prior to its publication as part of Rolling Stone's standard fact-checking process — and that the general did not object to or dispute any of the reporting.

Asked if McChrystal pushed back on the story, Bates responded: “No, absolutely not.”

“We ran everything by them in the fact-checking process as we always do,” the Rolling Stone editor said. “They had a sense of what was coming and it was all on the record and they spent a lot of time with our reporter, so I think they knew that they had said it.”

McChrystal describes his first meeting with the president as disappointing in the article, telling Rolling Stone that Obama came in unprepared.

The text of the interview can be read here.

UPDATE:
According to Time, McChrystal apparently offered President Obama his resignation. Did the President accept it? Moreover, the situation in Afghanistan is affected in large part by the rules of engagement that the Administration and Pentagon have foisted on the guys on the front lines - in a bid to reduce the number of civilian casualties, but at the same time makes it much more difficult to root out terrorists and the Taliban from the midst of the Afghan population.

Obama Rules Out Large Reduction in Afghan Force

Read the headline carefully. President Obama has ruled out a large reduction in US forces in Afghanistan. It doesn't say that President Obama has ruled out any reduction of forces. It also doesn't say that President Obama will increase forces as requested by those on the front lines, including Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

Meeting with leaders from both parties at the White House, Mr. Obama seemed to be searching for some sort of middle ground, saying he wanted to “dispense with the straw man argument that this is about either doubling down or leaving Afghanistan,” as White House officials later described his remarks.

But as the war approached its eight-year anniversary on Wednesday, the session underscored the perilous crosscurrents awaiting Mr. Obama. While some Democrats said they would support whatever he decided, others challenged him about sending more troops. And Republicans pressed him to order the escalation without delay, leading to a pointed exchange between the president and Senator John McCain of Arizona, his Republican opponent from last year’s election.

Mr. McCain told the president that “time is not on our side.” He added, “This should not be a leisurely process,” according to several people in the room.

A few minutes later, Mr. Obama replied, “John, I can assure you this won’t be leisurely,” according to several attendees. “No one feels more urgency to get this right than I do.”

Still, compared with the harsh debate over health care, the tone was civil and restrained during the 75-minute meeting in the State Dining Room as Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and about 30 members of Congress gathered around a large table with only glasses of water and notebooks in front of them.

Mr. Obama summoned the lawmakers to assure them that he would keep their concerns in mind as he considered the request of his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, for as many as 40,000 more troops. The president plans to meet with his national security team on Wednesday to talk about Pakistan and on Friday to talk about Afghanistan. Aides plan to schedule one more meeting before he decides on General McChrystal’s proposal.

President Obama is in a tough position, and continued support for the Afghanistan operations is coming from Republicans, as Democrats' support is clearly wavering.

A significant number of Democrats want to see the American commitment in Iraq curtailed; they want to bring the troops home. In fact, 98 have signed on to a House bill calling for an exit strategy for Afghanistan.

Walz, for instance, has signed onto a bill by Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), the most vocal critic among House Democrats of the Afghan war, calling on Obama to develop an “exit strategy” for getting U.S. forces out of the troubled country. The McGovern bill has 98 co-sponsors, including more than two dozen freshman and sophomore Democrats.

McGovern also released a bipartisan letter to Obama last week, urging the president to “reject any recommendation for a further escalation of U.S. military forces” in Afghanistan.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who like Walz was opposed to the Iraq war, said he signed onto the McGovern letter because boosting the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan isn’t the right solution.

Again, read this carefully; they say that the US squandered an opportunity to go after the Taliban by focusing on Iraq, and yet when the opportunity presents itself to go after the Taliban (with more troops - since that's what was diverted by Iraq according to this line of thinking), they're opting to curtail operations further.

Sen. Carl Levin makes a nonsensical argument that increased US presence in Afghanistan is counterproductive because it looks like the US is an occupying nation. Has Levin looked over to Iraq? The US troop presence is slowly declining from its peak during the surge, and Iraqis now have political and civil control over most of the country, even if they're still dealing with a tenuous security situation because of insurgents that want to kill and maim Iraqis at every opportunity.

The US presence in Afghanistan (troop authorization is 68,000) is nearly half of the number that we've seen in Iraq (which was more than 120,000), and the reason that the Taliban have been resurgent is because US, Afghan, and NATO forces have not been able to shut down the cross-border Taliban operations and the NATO forces have largely taken defensive positions, rather than striking out offensively against the Taliban to thwart their slow creep back into positions of control around the country. The US isn't seen as an occupying nation unless the US makes that its goal; and that was never the goal. It was to get the nation on its feet and set a course to being a functional state.

There is a long way to go before that happens, but cutting forces is going to severely undermine that goal. Moreover, it will give the Taliban a chance to spread, and with it bring al Qaeda back into prominence.

At the same time, you've got Democrats complaining that the war in Afghanistan didn't start until this year, a clear slam at the Bush Administration, which is playing things too cute by half given the Democrats reluctance to send troops to Afghanistan to combat the Taliban and to thwart the Taliban and al Qaeda from regaining a safe haven there.

White House Debating How To Prosecute War in Afghanistan

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is in charge of operations in Afghanistan is not happy with the way that his requests for more troops is being answered by the White House. He sent a letter to the White House stating as much and put his reputation and career on the line at that. In fact, he threatened to resign if more resources and more troops weren't provided for the mission.

In Kabul, some members of McChrystal's staff said they don't understand why Obama called Afghanistan a "war of necessity" but still hasn't given them the resources they need to turn things around quickly.

Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he'd stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.

"Yes, he'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He'll hold his ground. He's not going to bend to political pressure."

Speculation over how and why that letter leaked is of serious concern, primarily because it raises questions over White House policy on its national security policy and commitments to fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban from the very places they treated as safe harbors prior to 9/11.

Meanwhile, the White House is floating the idea of increasing operations against al Qaeda in Pakistan while not reinforcing US numbers in Afghanistan.

Two senior administration officials said Monday that the renewed fight against the terrorist organization could lead to more missile attacks on Pakistan terrorist havens by unmanned U.S. spy planes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have been made.

Top aides to President Obama said he still has questions and wants more time to decide.

The officials said the administration would push ahead with the ground mission in Afghanistan for the near future, still leaving the door open for sending more U.S. troops. But Obama's top advisers, including Vice President Joe Biden, have indicated they are reluctant to send many more troops — if any at all — in the immediate future.

In weekend interviews, Obama emphasized that disrupting al-Qaida is his "core goal" and worried aloud about "mission creep" that moved away from that direction. "If it starts drifting away from that goal, then we may have a problem," he said.

Denying al Qaeda and Taliban a safe haven is mission creep? That sounds like Obama is laying groundwork for a possible withdrawal of US forces, not sending more troops. Far from bolstering our Afghan allies, this turn of events shows our allies that this Administration is not looking to long term US strategic interests. That's a major concern, not just in Afghanistan and Pakistan but around the world.