Obama Giving Petraeus The Cold Shoulder

If you were a national leader faced with resolving an ugly conflict in the middle east don’t you’d think you’d invite and value the advice and leadership of a man who is fresh off winning another war in the same region?
That’s probably what you’d do if you were the sort of leader who valued sound policy over politics. Sadly, Obama isn’t that kind of a leader.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week.
But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat.
No longer does the man who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have one of the biggest voices at National Security Council meetings, as he did when Mr. Bush gave him 20 minutes during hourlong weekly sessions to present his views in live video feeds from Baghdad. No longer is the general, with the Capitol Hill contacts and web of e-mail relationships throughout Washington’s journalism establishment, testifying in media explosions before Congress, as he did in September 2007, when he gave 34 interviews in three days.
The change has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration’s debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
General Petraeus’s aides now privately call him “Dave the Dull,” and say he has largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular.

Whatever Petraeus’ future political intentions, the simple fact of the matter is that we’ve got troops on the battlefield and at risk in Afghanistan now. We’ve got history which tells us that retreating from such a conflict only emboldens our enemies by giving them the sort of propaganda victory that will inspire them to new attacks against our nation. And we’ve got a military leader in Petraeus with a damned good record in taking the fight to this enemy and winning.
For civilian political leader not encumbered with crass political considerations and manipulations the choice here would be simple. Listen to Petraeus.
Unfortunately, as I said before, Obama is not that sort of leader.