The fact that Petraeus is backing it, however, doesn’t then become an additional reason for further elements of the national political leadership to also back it. “Look, the general I put in charge because he was willing to defend my policy publicly is defending my policy” isn’t an independent basis for thinking the president’s policy is sound. ~Matt Yglesias

This is right.  It doesn’t make any sense to invoke Gen. Petraeus’ authority as a reason to support the plan, since any commander who accepts the assignment is bound to defend the merits of the plan–especially if he consulted in the drafting of the plan!  Saying that Gen. Petraeus supports the plan is like saying that he agrees with himself–one might expect such minimal coherence in a commander. 

Of course, one could just as easily cite other generals who think the plan is unlikely to succeed and that, according to Gen. Sheehan, the administration doesn’t know where it’s going.  Yet Gen. Petraeus has become the only figure who still possesses any credibility with the general public, because he actually knows what he’s doing to some degree and has been one of the few really outstanding commanding officers in the entire campaign.  One shudders to think how much worse things would be going if he were not in charge.  If you were going to try to run a successful counterinsurgency campaign, you would put someone with proven expertise in counterinsurgency, such as Gen. Petraeus, in charge of the effort.  To fail to do even this much would be to declare to the world that you are completely clueless.  However, the fact that Gen. Petraeus is very good at counterinsurgency tactics does not mean that he can save a situation that seems to be beyond our current means to save.   

But the Petraeus admiration had already reached such a point that, based on Gen. Petraeus‘ testimony alone, Hugh Hewitt and his legions of misguided followers made it their mission to penalise any Republican who opposed the “surge” because such opposition would “embolden the enemy.”  No word from Hewitt on whether the repeated massive bombings, the destruction of the Iron Bridge and the bombing inside the Green Zone constitute proof of an “emboldened enemy” despite the failure of all efforts to halt or change the “surge.”  Indeed, the existence of the so-called Victory Caucus (Hewitt’s mechanism for intimidating the Congressional GOP into slavishly follow the Bush line on Iraq) derived directly from this devotion to Petraeus.  Hewitt and friends are amazingly selective in the officers they choose to lavish praise on, naturally, since every military officer, active or retired, who can be found who questions or condemns the current plan or the war in its entirety receives scant respect from them.  When a few retired generals said that Rumsfeld should go (a view with which an overwhelming majority agreed by early 2006), we were treated to warnings about cabals and potential mutinies from some war supporters.  When Petraeus spoke, however, it was like the word of God for these people.  Funny how their respect for the officer seems to match up pretty exactly with their preconceived ideas about the war.    

The civilians and activists hide behind Petraeus because they have nothing else left.  It is also yet another example of the strange dichotomy of Bush’s approach to the war.  On the one hand, he is the War President, the Decider, the Numero Uno Honcho, and on the other he suffers from a case of chronic deference, constantly referring to “what our commanders on the ground” or “what our generals” say as his way out of every difficult question.  He would like to give the impression that he is a decisive leader who takes the bull by the horns, so to speak, while avoiding the impression that the mismanagement of the war has anything to do with him and the policies that he and his ministers set.  Instead of the buck stopping with him, he keeps giving it back to the generals, saying, “No, really, I want you to keep it!”  Because he is constantly deferring to the “experts,” he may think he has immunised himself from criticism (much as he has sealed himself off from the real world in all else), but as soon as someone in Congress attempts to fill the war leadership vacuum that he has left he suddenly rediscovers vast inherent powers in the role of Commander-in-Chief and insists that no one is in charge except for him.  Until, that is, he can find a war tsar to try to do his job for him.  It is a bizarre contradiction in an administration that wants to undo all the “damage” of the post-Watergate years to the imperial presidency while also being terribly concerned not to appear to be repeating the mistakes of Vietnam-era Presidents (with whom, of course, loyal courtiers will insist he has nothing in common–except perhaps for allegedly treacherous and insane opponents). 

Vast executive overreach when it comes to politics and policing at home has met diffidence, confusion, weakness and dilatoriness in the conduct of foreign affairs, which just happens to be the exact inverse of what the executive should theoretically be like.  It is not exactly surprising that Presidents have become worse at doing what they are assigned to do once they started making everything their business.  Referring to the administration’s weakness in foreign affairs probably seems counterintuitive to those who, Ledeen-like, continually mistake jingoism for a demonstration of strength, rather than the desperation response of men whose minds are choked with fear and paranoia about the rest of the world that it is.  There is no more clear example of weakness in foreign affairs than engaging in the use of force against a vastly inferior, weaker, poorer state in the name of panicked self-defense.  It would be rather like Germany invading Belgium in 1914, but not to strike at France and swiftly knock out a strategic threat in the west.  Instead, Germany would have invaded Belgium in order to neutralise the menace and threat of Belgium itself.  Any power that felt truly threatened by a state so much weaker than itself would be admitting stunning weakness in the eyes of the world, probably inviting far more challenges and attacks than if it had left things alone.  A superpower that claims to be threatened by a basketcase country on the other side of the planet has all but admitted that it is on the ropes.