The politics of the surge

Tom Ricks’ series on the surge in The Washington Post continues with a riveting account of how David Petraeus beat back both a chief of Central Commander who wanted to return to the pre-surge tactics that had failed and Congressional Democrats who wanted to admit defeat. Ricks’ account shows Petraeus and his team to be almost as skilled at the art of politics as they are at counter-insurgency.

When you consider that Admiral Fallon, the head of Central Command, wanted to halve the number of US combat forces in Iraq and downgrade the importance of security as a goal, you realise that the man above Petraeus in the chain of command was—essentially—prepared to lose. But Petraeus grasped that with the President foursquare behind him and the mission, he could resist Central Command’s desire to end the surge before it had really started and to pull US troops out of the fight.