Bush rewards Petraeus with Central Command

April 23, 2008

The next time John McCain says he’ll let Gen. David Petraeus dictate troop deployments to Afghanistan, it won’t be so embarrassing.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, who has commanded United States troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated to head the United States Central Command, which oversees military operations across a wide swath of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced on Wednesday.

Mr. Gates said that he and President Bush and [sic] settled on the four-star general for the post because he is best suited to oversee American operations, not just in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and other areas where the United States is engaged in “assymetric” [sic] warfare, a euphemism for battling terrorists and non-uniformed combatants.

Petraeus will replace Adm. William Fallon, who, as the estimable Alex Koppelman explained last month, retired early after frequently being at odds with the Bush White House, most notably on policy towards Iran. Just as importantly, Fallon also has significant differences with … David Petraeus.

Fallon was apparently a strong voice among those in the Pentagon worried about the stress the ongoing war in Iraq is putting on the military, its soldiers and its ability to respond to a fresh crisis…. Fallon had reportedly argued with Petraeus over the issue of how many U.S. troops should remain in Iraq and for how long, citing other threats as a reason to lower troop levels in Iraq and accept an elevated level of risk there.

Following the announcement on Petraeus succeeding Fallon, Bill Kristol crowed, “Bush has done the right thing, overriding opposition from within the Pentagon. He deserves congratulations — and thanks.”

I seem to recall a certain president saying he would rely on the advice of his military commanders. Who was that again? Right, it’s the one who’s now “overriding opposition from within the Pentagon.”

Ilan Goldenberg notes some key angles to consider going forward.

First, it’ll be interesting to see how he handles the tension of Afghanistan and Iraq from that position since Gates, Mullen and Fallon have all made clear that Iraq is hurting our mission in Afghanistan. Somehow I have a feeling that he will advise that we continue to place all of our strategic eggs in the Iraq basket.

Second, the confirmation hearings should give Democrats an opportunity to finally get Petraeus to answer some central questions. Is the mission in Iraq hurting Afghanistan and Pakistan? What is the central front in the fight against Al Qaeda? What about our overstretched forces? Is Iraq making America safer? Petraeus was able to dodge (Somewhat legitimately) on a number of these questions in the past by arguing that this wasn’t his job. Well, now it is. So he really needs to answer.

Third, there was speculation that Petraeus was going to move off to SACEUR right around January. This guarantees that if there is a Democratic administration, Petraeus may end up playing a central role in helping design an exit strategy. Of course, in testimony last month he brought into question whether he’d actually be willing to do that. Which is huge, and must be asked again during the hearings.

And Cernig has a few more, most notably on Iran.

I hope Congress quizzes Petraus deeply now on his mindset regarding Iran — in particular about the Iraqi government’s Maliki/Hakim’axis and its close ties with Iran. Maybe someone could remind him that when the US military first arrested diplomats it accused of being Qods Force plotting arms sales and attacks on coalition forces, the arrests took place at Hakim’s compound and those arrested had meetings scheduled with national security advisor al-Rubei and President Talibani later that day.

I don’t doubt that Petraeus will be confirmed, but the confirmation hearings might get at least mildly interesting.

War with Iran before the end of the year.

General Casey, who preceeded Petraeus and did JUST WHAT HE WAS TOLD TO DO by the White House, and still got shafted, must be loving this.

  • Third, there was speculation that Petraeus was going to move off to SACEUR right around January. This guarantees that if there is a Democratic administration, Petraeus may end up playing a central role in helping design an exit strategy.

    Why would the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander-Europe) handle an exit stategy?

    Dem Arsenal also reports that Odierno will replace Petraeus. Maybe things have changed, but in either Cobra II or Fiasco, Odierno and Petraeus were described as complete opposites. Pet. was the velvet glove/diplomat type, while Odierno was the shoot-anything-that-moves type.

  • There are no ground-troop reserves to commit for an expedition into Iran; we’re already holding soldiers past their commitment dates, which only gives more reason to not enlist. If, as Lance points out, we are to be in a “hot” war with Iran by year’s end, then someone’s going to have to bring the draft back online—probably no later than Labor Day.

    Besides—if Betraeus is going to take over all ME operations without a dependable backup (our broken force still looks good when put next to Maliki’s Misfits), even Afghanistan will become untenable before year’s end, and Karzai’s government winds up exactly like the folks we left atop the Embassy in Saigon almost four decades ago.

  • Obama and Clinton both to should declare if there is an unprovoked attack against any country before the Election there will be major house cleaning within the Pentagaon and its Military leadership when they become Commander in Chief.

  • Skewered Left –

    An “unprovoked attack” will never happen. There will be some kind of rationale trumped up to start a war. They aren’t just going to start strafing Iran – they’ll trump up something to do it.

    The bloodier the better, actually. Because if they can trump up something really nasty then they’ll have a higher likelihood of getting the public whipped up enough to slide a draft through without too much opposition. At least in the short term.

    Barring that, they won’t start something with Iran. Iran is the only thing keeping Iraq from tumbling completely out of their control right now…

    (And there should be a major housecleaning in the Pentagon after this election. There won’t be, because it will be perceived as “political” and the Pentagon isn’t “supposed” to be “political”. So Republicans can politicize the hell out of it and then when the Dems come along to clean it up the GOPers will scream bloody murder about how “politicized” the Dems are making things. Dem politicians really don’t know how to play the game.)

  • NonyNony said: “An “unprovoked attack” will never happen. There will be some kind of rationale trumped up to start a war. They aren’t just going to start strafing Iran – they’ll trump up something to do it.”

    They already have that. They claim a significant number of casualties in Iraq are being caused by Iranian supplied munitions.

    Of course, the fact that they are actually being caused by the Iraqis we ‘liberated’ doesn’t seem to factor into their equations.

    They are trying desperately to sell this war. It’s not working. At least not in Congress (except for Joe LIEberman of course).

    Maybe we ought to thank Senator Obama.

    Or maybe it’s just “Fool me once…”

  • There are no ground-troop reserves to commit for an expedition into Iran; — Steve, @4

    Who needs ground troops, when we can obliterate Iran with nukes? Or haven’t you heard Her Imperial Majesty “promise” just that?

  • libra is right, they think it can all be done with air strikes and that troops won’t be necessary. Of course, they have always been right in the past! My son is deploying to Iraq just before the election in November, so this is killing me…teh bastards!

    • Comments are closed.