Word: petraeus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...after he took over, Gates summoned General David Petraeus - no favorite of Rumsfeld's - from near exile at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., where he had supervised the writing of a new counter insurgency-warfare manual. Gates was about to travel to Iraq and wanted to know what the big questions were. "The biggest question is whether we have the right strategic concept to fight the war," Petraeus told him. "Instead of concentrating all our efforts on transitioning to Iraqi control, we need to go out and secure the population." (See pictures of Basra getting back to business...
Rajapaksa's campaign has a bit in common with the one General David Petraeus deployed so successfully in Iraq, and is rolling out in Afghanistan. Just as the American general was able to use Sunni insurgents to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sri Lanka's President turned a splinter group of Tigers into allies. Colombo and Washington (and other Western capitals) also cooperated in cutting off funding to the Tigers from a global network of sympathizers. Beyond that, however, the Rajapaksa counterinsurgency doctrine seems ripped from a bygone era. The main principles...
...disconcerting to hear Richard Holbrooke, our very best diplomatic negotiator, deploying words like "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" to describe the recent round of talks with delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan in Washington, during a White House briefing for columnists just after the talks ended. He was flanked by General David Petraeus, who reinforced Holbrooke's message. The talks "exceeded my expectations," the general said. A good deal of this is, obviously, puffery designed to keep the diplomatic balloon aloft. But there was also, I'd guess, some wishful thinking involved...
...That is why both Holbrooke and Petraeus will do everything they can to nudge and puff Zardari and Karzai into being statesmen who occasionally act in their own national interest, as Zardari seems to have done by deciding to fight the Taliban. That is why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates acted with such alacrity to replace a good general, David McKiernan, with another, Stanley McChrystal, better versed in the tactics used to fight terrorist insurgencies. That is why we are in Afghanistan and Pakistan: because our enemies - the people who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 - are festering...
...even as the Taliban extended its reach, and that there was not enough of the "new thinking" as demanded by Gates. "It's time for new leadership and fresh eyes," Gates said, refusing to elaborate. He noted that Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and General David Petraeus, who as chief of U.S. Central Command oversees the Afghanistan war, both endorsed the move. Officers typically serve about 24 months in the slot, meaning McKiernan served less than half his expected tour...