Calling Brother Hayes
As Steve argues over at The Weekly Standard, and says in a comment here on Ricochet, "McChrystal Must Go." The Rolling Stone fiasco, Steve asserts, has weakened McChrystal irreparably, rendering him incapable of standing up to the civilians to whom he reports, including the commander-in-chief. Anyone commanding our troops in Afghanistan, Steve argues, must be in a position to tell Barack Obama things he just won't want to hear. If the President keeps him in his job, McChrystal will find himself too beholden to the President to stand up to him.
The argument strikes me as entirely compelling--except for one point: Who the heck would replace McChrystal? McChrystal commands the loyalty, even the devotion, of the troops on the ground; he represents perhaps the Pentagon's leading practitioner of counter-insurgency warfare; and he appears to be very nearly the only American in the military, the state department, the White House or anywhere else who has a good working relationship with Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Steve endorses Bill Kristol's suggestion that the President should ask Gen. Petraeus to lay down his present duties at Central Command in Florida to replace McChrystal. Which leads me to ask two questions of Steve. (And I don't intend these as in any way tendentious. Steve covers the war beat. He's a lot more likely to know the answers than is yours truly.)
1. As a practical matter, is there truly any chance either that the President would ask Petraeus to replace McChrystal--or that Petraeus would agree to do so?
2. Absent Petraeus, can anybody name, say, two or three likely candidates whom we have reason to believe could do the job as well as McChrystal?
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Comments:
Jun '10
Re: Calling Brother Hayes
The name I keep hearing, as the most qualified, is General Rodriguez, but he already has a job in Afghanistan, so the next thing will be to find somebody to replace Rodriguez, and on, and on....
Re: Calling Brother Hayes
Peter, we don't need to know who is going to replace McChrystal. Any organization that can't replace its CEO is a weak and faltering one -- and if that describes the US Armed Forces (which would surprise me) I'd like to know that now, and I'd like to begin a rapid retreat from the world if that's so. The idea that there's an indispensable man in Afghanistan -- unfire-able due to his own uniqueness -- fills me with dread.
As Jim Pinkerton argues here, there are lots of political parts in motion, so it may not be in Obama's political interest to fire him, but from what I read in the article and what I know about the importance of civilian control over the military, there sure is. He should be fired. And replaced with the next in line. Simple as that. I trust that the US military has a great stable of competent commanders -- and even, to push it further, that a change might be helpful.
Put it this way: McChrystal and his colleagues joked about and mocked his superiors in government. Don't you imagine there are some can-do colonels and majors one notch down doing the same, about McChrystal?
May '10
Re: Calling Brother Hayes
1. Don't think so...
2. LTG Doug Lute.
Re: Calling Brother Hayes
Not surprisingly, Peter's questions are good ones.
In order:
1. I do not think there's much chance President Obama would ask General Petraeus to leave for Afghanistan. That's too bad. If we believe what Obama has said about Afghanistan since, well, 2002, he believes it's critical to US national security interests. (Yes, there are reasons to doubt his sincerity -- chiefly the withdrawal date.) Picking Petraeus would erase any doubts about his commitment to the mission and his seriousness about winning it.
If Obama asked, Petraeus would not -- and could not -- turn him down. I don't think the general would be eager to go, but he'd do it if his Commander-in-Chief asked.
2. An even more difficult question. I don't like our options. But it's important to remember that we're not comparing McChrystal of two weeks ago to these possible replacements. We're comparing them to a badly damaged McChrystal -- the McChrystal that would be leading troops and making internal arguments following a humiliating trip back to Washington for his comeuppance and after a public spanking from the president (and seemingly everyone in the administration, including Robert Gibbs.)
Continued below...
Re: Calling Brother Hayes
WaPo's Greg Jaffe, a terrific reporter, mentions three possible replacements. His reporting is consistent with what I've heard. I'm not sure I'm qualified to make a judgment. (In fact, I'm sure I'm not.) But I've heard concerns that Rodriguez is not the Big Personality that winning in Afghanistan -- and in Washington -- will require. John Allen has the right kind of experience and good relationships in the military hierarchy. Jim Mattis is highly-respected and while it's true that he's blunt-to-the-point-of-controversial, as Jaffe writes, that's a positive in my view. The problem, of course, is the transition to a new leader on the eve of what could be the decisive front in the escalating battle.
None of these options are very good. And it might be the case, as a practical matter at least and without regard to precedent, that keeping a weakened McChrystal would be better than elevating, say, Rodriguez. But I remain skeptical. Choosing Petraeus would make the best of a very unfortunate situation, in particular because it would send a signal that Obama is as committed as his flacks keep telling us.