General David Petraeus: Sycophant Savior

Additionally, Bacevich illustrates how sound military strategy dictates that when a surge is working, it’s time to fall back on “one of the oldest principles of generalship: when you find an opportunity, exploit it. Where you gain success, reinforce it. When you have your opponent at a disadvantage, pile on.”

Yet, this is not how Petraeus proceeded. He instead opts for a modest draw down. Why?

There is only one plausible explanation for Petraeus’s terminating a surge that has (he says) enabled coalition forces, however tentatively, to gain the upper hand. That explanation is politics-of the wrong kind.

Who benefits from this modest draw down decision? Bacevich explains:

• It helps congressional Republicans facing anti-war pressure in their home districts.
• It helps president Bush:
  

  Above all, a modest drawdown pleases President Bush. It gives him breathing room to continue the conflict in which he has so much invested. It all but guarantees that Iraq will be the principal gift that Bush bestows upon his successor when he leaves office in January 2009. Bush’s war will outlive Bush: for reasons difficult to fathom, this has become an important goal for the president and his dwindling band of loyalists.

• And it helps Congressional Democrats. Says the author: “Accused with considerable justification of having done nothing to end the war since taking control of the Congress in January, they can now point to the drawdown as evidence that they are making headway.”

Bacevich continues his analysis of Democrats later in the article using a criticism familiar to staunch anti-war liberals:

The Congress, liberal Democrats voting aye, has made itself complicit in this shameful policy by obligingly appropriating whatever sums of money the president has requested, all, of course, in the name of “supporting the troops.”

Here, here, Professor Bacevich. I welcome your clear and even handed voice to the ever-growing chorus of people dissatisfied with Congressional Democrats.

Interesting to me is Bacevich closing with a strong rebuke of Petraeus :

Politically, it qualifies as a brilliant maneuver. The general’s relationships with official Washington remain intact. Yet he has broken faith with the soldiers he commands and the Army to which he has devoted his life. He has failed his country. History will not judge him kindly.

As I said above, this has to cut deeper than a newspaper ad bought by a very left-leaning PAC. One wonders how outraged and disgusted, “the president and his dwindling band of loyalists” will feel while reading this remarkable analysis?

More commentary from Keith:

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