It might seem surprising that a story in Rolling Stone magazine, the old antiwar hippie standard, could cause enough tumult in Washington to spur the rapid-fire termination of the leading American general in the war in Afghanistan. But after the article made public the contempt that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and his aides expressed for other American generals, diplomats, members of the Obama administration and the president himself, President Obama promptly and correctly demanded the general’s resignation Wednesday morning. In the nation’s long tradition of ensuring loyalty and civilian control of a publicly nonpartisan military, the president could no less.
Mr. Obama wisely assigned Gen. David Petraeus, the deposed general’s boss, to assume Gen. McChrystal’s duties. The close involvement of Gen. Petraeus, the most renowned American commander in the Iraq war, should bolster the president’s assurance to the nation, to our NATO allies and to the Afghan national government that America’s effort in Afghanistan is in capable hands.
“This is a change in personnel,” the president said, “not a change in policy.”
Whether the latter is a good thing, however, has become an open question, which helps explain why the McChrystal affair suddenly dominated the national news media attention Wednesday.
At the least, the contretemps signaled that Gen. McChrystal and his top aides were contemptuous of their peers and their boss, if not recklessly arrogant. Publication of their remarks was bound to aggravate critical relationships with our NATO partners; with the American ambassador in Kabul, former general Karl Elkenberry; with the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke; and with Gen. James Jones, the former Marine Corps commander and current national security adviser to the President. Other targets of derisive comments included Vice President Joe Biden and the president himself.