How good a general was David Petraeus?

Neoconservatives have constructed dangerous illusions around David Petraeus’s strictly limited successes

History has not dealt kindly with American generals of late. Remember when ‘Stormin’’ Norman Schwarzkopf ranked as one of the great captains of the ages? When members of Congress talked of promoting General Colin Powell to five-star rank, hitherto reserved for the likes of Marshall and Eisenhower? When bombing the Serbs into submission elevated General Wesley Clark to the status of a would-be presidential candidate? Or when Tommy Franks travelled the world giving speeches at $50,000 a pop to explain how he had liberated Afghanistan and Iraq? More recently still, remember when journalists fell in love with Stanley McChrystal, the ‘Zen warrior’ who seldom slept, thrived on one meal a day, was ‘fit as a tuning fork’, and filled his e-reader ‘with serious tomes on Pakistan, Lincoln, and Vietnam’?

With the passage of time, the stature of these figures has diminished considerably. Men once deemed fit for idolatry now seem more human than godlike. Today we know them — to the extent that we know them at all — for their follies and failings as much as for their achievements. No doubt General McChrystal’s body fat level was (and perhaps is) admirably low. Far less admirable — to the extent of rightly costing him his job — was the climate of contempt for senior civilian officials that he stupidly allowed to flourish in his headquarters.

Fate has thus far spared General David Petraeus from this tendency toward reputation deflation. As he retires from the US Army to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency, his standing in Washington and with much of the American public remains very high indeed. The encomiums accompanying his departure from active duty are as numerous and as colourful as the medals that cover his chest. And his talent for seducing journalists remains unimpaired.