Scott Sullivan :
Missed by a mile,
reinstate Gen. McChrystal
I apologize to all those who follow current political events in Petroleumworld.com. Yesterday, I missed by a mile the true significance of President Obama's decision to dismiss Gen McChrystal and replace him with Gen Petraeus as the new commander of the US Special Operations Forces, as well as the commander of all US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. I erred by accepting the conventional wisdom that McChrystal was dumped because of his comments to Rolling Stone that were crtical of Obama and Biden. Wrong!
Today, my guess is that Petraeus was promoted because Petraeus is pro-Pakistan , while McChtystal is not. To find the truth, I did a google search on the topics of Petraeus-Pakistan, Mullen -Pakistan, McChrystal-Pakistan, Gates-Pakistan, and Panetta-Pakistan. From Obbama's national security team of Petraeus, Mullen, Gates and Panetta comes a steady stream of pro-Pakistan news stories and policies. Example: Mullen -- “US Striving to regain Pakistan's Trust.” Rubbish! This and a number of similar pro-Pakistan and anti-US comments have been made by leading USG officials such as Petraeus, Mullen, Gates and Panetta. These comments seem to be part of an organized State Department campaign to boost Pakistan's prestige in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, McChrystal and his officers in the US Special Operations Command are sending signals that they are not on the Pakistan/Petraeus team. In fact, Gen McCrystal may have been dismissed by Obama because he has developed close ties -- as is appropriate for his assignment -- with Afghan President Karzai, who is detested by Obama's team.
And what is today's status of McChrystal's officers in the Special Operations Command? Gen Petraeus is placing these officers in limbo. According to today's Washington Post, Gen Petraeus has announced he is taking members of his personal staff to Kabul. He fails to mention the fate of McChrystal's senior staff, including those in charge of operations, intelligence, and other key tasks. Let me suggest that Petraeus does not trust McChrystal's officers because he sees them as anti-Pakistan and anti-Iran.
Unfortunately, Petraeus' failure to rely on McChrystal's highly experienced staff could degrade the war fighting and nation building capabilities of the US Special Operations forces in ways that could put the success of the entire Afghanistan mission in question. This SOF mission in Afghanistan has already been disrupted by the Petraeus-McChrystal change of command. Any further purges of NcChrystal's staff well spread this disruption from top to bottom throughout the entire Special Forces Command.
In short, Gen Petraeus can be assured that his staff in Afghanistan will consist only of loyal pro-Pakistan officers, with Petraeus' political purge of McCrystal's anti-Pakistan officers from the Special Operations Command. However, Petraeus will pay an exorbitant sum for this sense of security – i.e. the possible US loss of Afghanistan, again, to Pakistan and the pro-Pakistan factions of Taliban. Certainly McChrystal and Petraeus can meet and devise a winning strategy for Afghanistan. What will they lose by trying?
Finally, President Obama could take advantage of this unique opportunity to advance stability in the critically important anti-terrorist front of Afghanistan. This war has gone on for too long and claimed too many victims for Obama to choose the option of business as usual in selecting the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. President Obama must pick someone who has the knowledge and desire to exploit the full potential of US Special Operations forces in Afghanistan. Obama must choose Gen McChrystal!
Scott Sullivan is a former Washington government employee and was the Senior Advisor for International Economics at the Crisis Management Center of the National Security Council, 1984 - 1986. Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
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Petroleumworld News 07/02/2010
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