Petraeus Will Sort Afghanistan

Petraeus sorted Iraq. Top generals only get appointed when the shit hits the fan. By and large hugely successful commanders make politicians feel useasy. So they try the also-rans first. My prediction is that Petraeus will get Afghanistan rolling as he did Iraq.

Obama will try to play his role down, but make no mistake. He's a winner.

War is a business, and it needs the chance of something better to do to get things moving, to put its practitioners out of a job, as well as raising their costs to the level of pointlessness. There's $3 trillion of gold, silver and copper to go after in Afghanistan for a start, to get people thinking about turning their swords into ploughshares. If anyone can, Petraeus can.

History is full of impossible battles being won when a brilliant commander takes over. Petraeus' record says that he can sort out the most impossible of situations. It's a great day to see him replacing McChrystal.

Daily Telegraph Petraeus Profile

Telegraph Profile Header

Profile: General David Petraeus
General David Petraeus has made a career out of parachuting into perilous situations – but he's always come through with his reputation enhanced.

FT - Gen Petraeus is no stranger to taking on what appears to be a mission impossible. The Iraq war almost seemed a lost case until the US helped stabilise Anbar province and other areas with help from the Sunni “Awakening” programme, which involved paying tribal leaders to switch allegiance to the US and fight al-Qaeda.

In an interview with the Financial Times in December, Gen Petraeus, who currently heads US Central Command, cautioned against drawing comparisons between Iraq and Afghanistan. He cited Afghanistan’s absence of a history of strong central government as one of the key differences.

His observation was prescient. In the past six months, the question of how far the actions of the many powerful actors within the Afghan state are aligned with western goals has resurfaced in increasingly striking form.

The most dramatic illustration of this trend was the massive rigging at last year’s presidential elections conducted, analysts say, with the collusion of regional strongmen and members of security forces loyal to Mr Karzai.

The failure of Afghanistan’s government to muster a credible team to fill the “government in a box” that Gen McChrystal had imagined would take over in the southern town of Marjah after US marines seized the town from the Taliban in February reflects a chronic dearth of state capacity, but also a lack of will in Kabul.

In Kandahar province, which Gen McChrystal saw as critical to the Afghan campaign, the US finds itself in the perverse position of trying to boost the standing of a weak provincial governor who is overshadowed by the city’s most influential power broker, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of the Afghan president and chairman of the provincial council.

Indeed, Mr Karzai’s refusal to bow to US pressure to remove his relative reflects a broader trend. Like many Afghan leaders, Mr Karzai relies on a patronage machine comprised of regional power brokers to project influence.

The model extends into the ranks of the security forces, which are riven with divisions and politicking, according to the think-tank Crisis Group. This raises questions about how well they might hang together if US forces leave.