There is one celebrity with the makings of a national hero, someone who has the qualities that might carry him right into the White House. It is David Petraeus. He is almost universally credited with the brilliant achievement of saving American honor and gaining an approximation of 'victory' in Iraq. President Obama himself is in awe of this warrior-intellectual to whom he defers on all matters in the Greater Middle East. Petraeus' mythic standing is a perfect example of how the compelling demand for a hero creates the illusion that indeed a savior has arrived.
The so-called 'surge' for which Petraeus takes unabashed credit did not change anything fundamental in Iraq. The record is clear that the decline in violence, sectarian and anti-American, was due to three factors independent of our actions. They were: the emergence among the Sunni militants of the sawa'h movement that turned on al-Qaeda in Iraq for their own tribal and cultural reasons; the Sunnis' defeat by the Shi'ites in the civil war of 2005-2007; Iranian political intervention to persuade Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army to stand down so as to strengthen Prime Minister Maliki's hand in the Iraqi-U.S. negotiations on a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).
Iran won its bet as Maliki indeed did turn the tables on Petraeus et al in Washington, severely restricting the American military's presence in Iraq. All this was in the works well before the surge troops arrived, troops that never got beyond Baghdad. Moreover, Iraq today is an economic and political shambles, without a government for nine months, that teeters on the brink of a three-way civil war while Tehran's influence mounts steadily.
Petraeus, the most political general America has seen since MacArthur, eagerly accepted the unearned laurels. He plays presidents and public opinion with the deftness he describes in his counter insurgency writings as required to win the propaganda campaign against the native rebels. The doctrine has been far more effectively executed in Washington than in Afghanistan.
In Fall 2004, he penned a series of articles lauding George Bush for his brilliant and bold leadership. In them, he proclaimed success in personally building an Iraqi army ready to take over responsibility for the country's security. That was a complete fiction. In fact, Petraeus had made a series of blunders in recruiting a nearly 100 percent Shi'ite army composed mainly of party militia members. One of the very few capable units, the notorious Grey Wolves, took the lead in the bloody ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad and surrounding districts. 6 years later, the Iraqi National Army of which their American general boasted is still a work in progress.
None of this is of interest to our leaders, to our media, to our public. Hero worship is blind -- especially when there is a desperate emotional need to make the country feel good (or, at least, less bad) about its tragic, farcical intervention that tarnished every principle our Republic supposedly holds dear.
Petraeus understands all this. He plays his role skillfully. A shy half-smile for a people who prefer the boy next door variety of hero to the grim, hard-edged military man we associate with the bad guys. A chest full of ribbons and medals that, to a few jaundiced eyes, makes him look like a caricature of a Ruritanian Field Marshal. Army regulations on decorations say wear only 3 or wear them all. It is highly doubtful that Petraeus ever considered the former option. Modesty is not 'in' when it comes to American celebrity culture. Oddly, none of Petraeus' decorations are for actions in combat. He never has seen combat; he never has been under fire. The very model of a modern hero-general. His big battles were won in the corridors of the Pentagon and the antechambers to presidential power. However confected Petraeus' legendary triumphs are, they serve no less well as credentials that a sorely tried nation may take as signaling that here is the man who can set the country straight.
Audacity is the key to turning celebrity into hero status. Sarah Palin has it. So too does David Petraeus -- in abundance. It took audacious nerve to throw himself into the 2004 presidential election while a serving officer, and do so by misrepresenting a key element in the Iraq debate -- one for which he was individually responsible.
It took audacity to maneuver to undercut two of his former commanding officers, General David McKiernan and Admiral William Fallon, whose careers met an untimely demise as a consequence. It took audacity to sideline Ambassador General Karl Eikenberry from last year's critical Afghanistan strategic review (with the backing of Robert Gates) because his views ran against the grain of Petraeus' own plans for being producer and director of SURGE II.
It took audacity to qualify in public the White House's publicly stated commitment to begin a withdrawal of troops by July 1, 2011 within days of its being made. It has taken even greater audacity to plant stories via his aides that he has the necessary 'moral authority' in effect to reset the mission's coordinates and resource needs as he deems fit. "Team Kabul," as Petraeus refers to his Afghanistan staff, says openly that the July 2011 date is "meaningless."
It takes audacity to launch a campaign of village destruction in Kandahar province, cleansing the countryside of its civilian population, so as to chalk up a larger tally of enemy kills in time for the year end review -- even if this means turning on its head the core precept of his own counterinsurgency doctrine. It takes audacity to spread word of a breakthrough success in the bringing of "a very high level Taliban leader" to Kabul for "promising" talks (literally as well as figuratively bringing him); and then when the 'Taliban no. 2' is exposed as an imposter, a Quetta shop keeper in fact, for Petraeus brazenly to offer the laconic comment that "I was not surprised." And then to blame the British for the entire episode. That is the kind of audacity that points a general in the direction of the White House whose incumbent is your Commander-in-Chief.
By the way, the Editors of the Times have offered no comment on the 'Taliban leader' episode -- a humiliation for Petraeus, a humiliation for America. Americans may pay it no attention; others in Kabul, Islamabad and Teheran do.
Andrew Johnson is routinely listed at or near the bottom of every Presidential ranking. Franklin Pierce too is listed in he rankings of infamy as a Prez. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was ratified on his watch, which led fairly directly to Civil War.
Grant, as earlier noted, was a good man, but his personal problems led to corruption in his Admin (although he himself was not corrupt).
Andrew Jackson is probably the most interesting comparison with Petraeus, Jackson likewise was a charismatic, politically astute figure- but his populism is the very antithesis, for better and worse, of Petreaus' Rockefeller Republicanism-, i.e., his Obama-like elitism, urbanity, and shallowness. Obama or Petraeus in 2012? No difference except that Republicans will be afraid to go against the god they have helped create, which will help in passing useful legislation like unemployment extensions. Petraeus would be a better President than Obama in '12 for this reason.
"Nevertheless, liberals who gathered Thursday night at the Manhattan home of historian Arthur Schlesinger agreed that a general is just the right kind of candidate to oppose President Bush and that they never had seen any general so liberal as Wes Clark. They chose to ignore past performance, which may be cause for regret."
While General Petraeus was in Washington D.C., before the surge, the liberal group Move-on was highly publicized for slogans about General Petraeus. It will be very interesting, that if, current Gen. Petraeus, indeed, decides to run for the Presidency. That, as Novak had cautioned the liberals about the political obstacles that faced Clark. Will conservatives also heed them too?
Dixon Wecter in wrote in his book, "The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero-Worship", published in 1941:
"Moreover the strong man *par excellence*, the professional soldier, the military victor, has never been a very durable idol in the United States. He will always find staunch partisans, to be sure, among his own men; they have marched and grumbled and fought with him, through twilight of peace, they muse about the past and the grandeur of their cause and leader, until their lives are transfigured by the association."
Eisenhower would prove him wrong, but will Petraeus?
"No great American idol, in review, has lacked a touch lent by the struggle against odds, or, by discouragement and passing failure. He must be a man who fights uphill. Unlike the dictator, or the superman as hero, he cannot display arrogance of victory; but rather must be attuned to the still sad music of humanity" (pg 16).
If General Petraeus decides to run for President. The "surge" strategy will inevitably be an instance in where Gen. Petraeus fought an uphill battle. The narrative of his campaign will undoubtedly showcase this ability to turn things around.
Dwight D. Eisenhower's biography of his years in the White House: "Mandate for Change", is very insightful as it pertains towards his run for the presidency. If General Petraeus does decided to run, I will await his book. And reflect upon what Ike wrote.
What are the implications of such a general aspiring to the highest political office? One very troubling characteristic beneath the surface would be that such a political leader has no visceral feeling and genuine comprehension for the human emotional and psychological dimensions of combat and war. Such a political general would be at total variance with such WW2 military leaders who matured under fire in real combat, like Dwight Eisenhower. Such a political general would be more inclined to start and stop a war on primarily political grounds and theoretical premise spun in war academies and Pentagon situation rooms, with little regards for reality. That surely is a very dangerous potential leader for Americans and America.
Recent experience seems to confirm this "Kabuki theater" reality of the recent "surge" in Iraq, where success was defined + measured by subsiding of enemy hostile engagements that were actually achieved by paying off potential adversaries to stand down for a short duration, from US treasury, to make it look like "potemkin" success.
The more I think about it, the more I am beginning to feel like Gen. Patreaus is a problem in the making.
And Petraeus talked Obama into ignoring the advice from Joe Biden to avoid the siren calls of the generals that took the US to disaster in Vietnam.
When violence did decline, right after the surge, then the story had to be changed
now it's "Well yes of course it declined. It just had nothing to do with the surge; forgive the coincidence. We can't possibly admit we were wrong."
It's ok. You can admit you were wrong. It doesnt mean you have to support the war. Pres. Obama admitted he was wrong on the issue. You can too.
If we had had simply left, Iran would have had to do it themselves.
Petraeus exist so that Bush could say "we'll let circumstance on the ground determine what is done". Petraeus was an excuse for inaction.
Itchy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village
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True story - Division discovers a large tunnel complex in South Vietnam - after the soldiers clear it out, the combat engineers come in with heavy equipment and open up the tunnel enterence so people can walk in rather than crawl in on their hands and knees. Commanding general of division arrives by Huey and walks into the enterence, gets his picture taken and is later awarded the Silver Star with valor designation. Which is how most generals get their combat medals.
Allow a post suggesting a liberal senator may be slightly mistaken? Ha, that'll be the day.