petraeus

One thing I didn’t mention in my just-published piece about Gen. David Petraeus’ talk before the Heritage Foundation today: Donald Rumsfeld was there. And it was awkward.
For starters, Rumsfeld is the most inconvenient figure in the GOP foreign-policy establishment, a modern-day Robert McNamara whose name is synonymous with self-deception, outright deception, arrogance and failure.

Gen. David Petraeus repeatedly made statements that supported Barack Obama’s foreign-policy proposals or cut against John McCain’s during a talk on Wednesday.

Earlier today I wondered what Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, thought about empowering tribal forces to augment Afghan police and soldiers — that is, creating a “Sons of Afghanistan” force like the Sons of Iraq. I posed the question to McKiernan at a press conference today. The short answer: not a [...]

Could it be that the United States will seek to create tribal-based militias in Afghanistan, as it did in Iraq?
Carlotta Gall of The New York Times caught up with Central Command chief David Petraeus in London, and it appears he’s considering that option:

ISTANBUL – It’s 10 p.m. in the lowest level of the Istanbul airport. In 20 minutes I’ll be allowed to board my plane to Kabul, bringing me to the capitol city of Afghanistan at the crack of dawn. Before I made my way down to the gate, an International Herald-Tribune headline caught my eye, for [...]