Yesterday, the Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol proposed an intriguing replacement for Gen. McChrystal:
If Gen. McChrystal does step down, there are undoubtedly many able general officers who could replace him. Here’s one unconventional suggestion, though: Ask Gen. David Petraeus to give up his CENTCOM post and take command of the war in Afghanistan.
Today, we find that Obama took the advice:
President Obama announced Wednesday that he has accepted Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resignation as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and nominated Gen. David Petraeus to replace him, following a scathing article in which he and his aides were quoted criticizing the administration.
While it might just be a coincidence (though if I was Kristol, I’d take credit for it) the irony of choosing the neo-cons favorite military leader won’t be lost on Obama’s more left-leaning supporters.
Keep in mind that only three years ago MoveOn.org took out a full-page ad in the New York Times titled “General Petraeus or General Betray Us.” This was only a year before the group endorsed Obama. I wonder if they are feeling a bit betrayed by the news.
June 23rd, 2010 | 2:30 pm
Probably most of MoveOn.org is fine with this news. Anything The One does is Right. It’s the secular version of divine-command ethical theory.
June 24th, 2010 | 4:06 am
Your assumption that Kristol was doing anything more than repeating the obvious decision, which a wide variety of commentators assumed would or should happen, proves only that you, by contrast, read ONLY that neo-con rag. Congratulations.
June 24th, 2010 | 10:28 am
Does Bill Kristol ever remind his readers of the searing insight he had into Iraqi politics back in 2003? “I think there’s been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America, that, you know, somehow the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni, or the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of fundamentalist regime. There’s almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq has always been very secular.”
[Article 2 of the new Iraqi Constitution: "Islam is the official religion of the State and is a foundation source of legislation"]
It’s the ultimate irony that any conservatives take him seriously. Conservatives love quoting the late William F. Buckley about how he would rather be governed by the first 400 names in the Boston phonebook than the Harvard faculty. Then some of them turn around and listen to the advice of… a visiting professor at Harvard and the holder of a Harvard Ph.D. And someone who doesn’t know anything more about military strategy or Middle Eastern politics than your next door neighbor.
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