Petraeus

General David Petraeus has handed over command of the Afghan theater in order to assume direction of the CIA. With difficulty he will take charge of a military force. With his withdrawal comes the end of one of the most interesting military careers of the North American military — but it also makes evident the grave deterioration of U.S. influence in the world. Petraeus is a winner: for this reason, he is out of the way while Obama prepares to accept a humiliating defeat.

Petraeus is a counterinsurgency specialist formed in the French school, in the lessons of the Algerian War. He was the final key for President Bush to grab when the disaster of the Iraq War led Congress to consider withdrawing troops. Petraeus revised the doctrine of counterinsurgency, adapted it to the Iraqi setting, occupied himself with its application and achieved in less time than expected a reversal of the situation and the pacification of the Sunni front. The Iraq War was won, although the unresolved challenges there are still great.

Obama sent him to Afghanistan to try to remedy the situation. The general established a new strategy with which to achieve victory, but this time it was behind a president committed to facing the Capitol. Obama never believed in victory and was never disposed to assume the implicated costs: more troops for more time. The president utilized the general to give credibility to a policy which was always one of exit. While it was often repeated that this was a just war that must be won, it was insisted more that the troops be withdrawn.

Petraeus can be useful in the CIA because intelligence plays a capital role in counterinsurgency, but his replacement responds to the desirability of retiring a general from the battlefield in the moment in which his strategy is being abandoned.