President Barack Obama has “accepted the resignation” (fired) Gen. Stanley McChrystal as U.S. commander in the Afghanistan War. He has called upon Gen. David Petraeus to take over a very difficult and challenging war. There is no immediate prospect of victory, pacification or solution.
Afghanistan is a mess. It is a backward country in a strategic geographic position, where varied guerilla and terrorist groups cause continuing trouble with no “front lines.” Troublesome Afghanistan is alongside troublesome Iran.
Gen. Petraeus’ assignment actually is an unintended “demotion.” The general has been head of the United States Central Command, which coordinates U.S. military efforts not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan, parts of Asia and parts of Africa.
Gen. Petraeus is 57, a West Point graduate and former paratrooper who served at Fort Campbell, Ky., along the Kentucky-Tennessee border. He was shot in the chest in 1991 during an exercise when a soldier tripped and his rifle fired by accident. Gen. Petraeus was taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville — where he was successfully operated on by Dr. Bill Frist, who later became a distinguished United States senator. Just a few days after he was wounded, Gen. Petraeus was doing pushups.
He was promoted to four-star general in 2007. Now Gen. Petraeus surely will receive easy confirmation of President Obama’s nomination of him for this new challenge in Afghanistan.
What will he do? What can he do under the current circumstances? He has no easy or even clear options for a “solution” in Afghanistan as he assumes the most difficult challenge of his career — so far.