Anyone who seriously thought President Barack Obama might use the McChrystal affair to alter the course in Afghanistan needs to understand that the firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal will do nothing to change direction.
On the contrary, his firing and replacement with his boss, Gen. David Petraeus, shows that the president is committed to the current course and has no intention to change directions:
In the short term, choosing Petraeus to replace Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal avoids many of the problems associated with removing the commander of a war effort involving 120,000 U.S. and NATO troops, billions of dollars in reconstruction projects and sensitive diplomatic negotiations.
As the head of the U.S. Central Command, Petraeus is more steeped in the Afghan war than any other four-star general in the military. He has played an active role in shaping the overall strategy as well as McChrystal’s tactical plans, and he knows Afghan President Hamid Karzai and many other senior Afghan government officials. During a recent trip, he met with the Afghan leader’s half brother, the chief power broker in the violence-plagued province of Kandahar.
“The decision to name Petraeus is the least disruptive way of removing McChrystal,” said Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the leader of an Afghanistan-strategy review team for Obama in early 2009. “Petraeus knows the strategy inside and out, he knows the plans — he is as much of an architect of this as General McChrystal.”
The Petraeus appointment, therefore, stands as a recommitment to the failed policy, one that compounds mistakes made first by President George W. Bush and exacerbated when President Obama approved his surge.
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