Thank heaven for General David Petraeus. By stepping into the shoes of the disgraced Stanley McChrystal, he has not only taken over command of the war in Afghanistan but has spared President Obama the full force of another looming disaster threatening to sink his Administration.
With the summer barely under way, it was already shaping up as the season of discontent for the President, assailed over his handling the oil spill disaster in the Gulf, economic recovery and uncertain progress in the campaign to turn the tide of the war in Afghanistan.
News of General McChrystal’s insubordination struck the crisis-hit White House like a tornado this week. General McChrystal was supposed to be Mr Obama’s man, replacing the Bush-era incumbent, General McKiernan, to send a message about new ownership and strategy in the war in Afghanistan.
When, after months of agonising, President Obama announced a troop surge, it was General McChrystal’s plan he largely endorsed above those offered by others in the Administration who argued for a lighter footprint.
General McChrystal’s radical departure from message and the unflattering portrait of the War Cabinet revealed to Rolling Stone confirmed many suspicions about the war effort in Afghanistan — uncertain, chaotic and divided, lacking a strong single voice.
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Officials made their fury at General McChrystal clear, but for the President, the scandal presented few good options. Military types huffed and puffed that General McChrystal’s insubordination was intolerable and that President Obama had no choice but to fire him straight away.
Others, including counter-insurgency experts intimately involved in the war planning, warned that replacing the commanding officer in the middle of the surge could prove disastrous to operations on the ground. Firing General McChrystal might reassert the President’s control politically, but at what military cost?
General McChrystal’s strategy was Mr Obama’s strategy — would his departure spell an end to it or would an incoming replacement be saddled with the unappetising prospect of carrying on with his disgraced predecessor’s war plan?
General Petraeus’s name was not among those initially talked about as a replacement, for the simple reason that nobody thought of him. As the commander of US Central Command, based in Florida, he was General McChrystal’s boss, overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His new job is, in practical terms, a demotion. It is also a masterstroke, or the closest thing to it that could be found in the whole sorry McChrystal mess.
Faced with yet another unforeseen disaster, Mr Obama moved swiftly to cap it, in contrast to his stumbling approach to the Gulf oil disaster. Crisis averted. In General Petraeus, he has a skilled commander, familiar with counter-insurgency and tricky public relations, a military icon who inspires confidence even among Mr Obama’s harshest critics.
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As CentCom chief, General Petraeus is in pole position to pick up where General McChrystal left off when he was called back from Kabul abruptly on Tuesday night, proving a continuity that few other commanders would have been equipped to bring.
There may be no small irony in him riding to the President’s rescue at a time when speculation is mounting about his own future political career. General Petraeus has repeatedly denied he is considering a presidential run in 2012 but plenty of Republicans would love to see the man credited for turning round the Iraq war running for their party.
What is not clear yet is whether even General Petraeus can turn around a war that most now see as a far more dangerous quagmire even than Iraq. In anointing him yesterday, Mr Obama scored a political victory in the face of disaster. A military one may prove more elusive, and may help to determine the future for both men.