YOU, SIR, ARE NO VINEGAR JOE STILWELL. I have to disagree with John (blogging at Ezra's place):

We don't need to be psychics to figure where this leads: faced with the choice of backing Petraeus, or backing the nominal Iraqi PM, the U.S. Govt. will find some cushy job for Petraeus to retire to.

Eh... Nouri Al-Maliki looks a lot more like Ngo Dinh Diem to me than Chiang Kai Shek. Indeed, he bears even more resemblance to the endless series of jokers, like Nguyen Cao Ky, who "ruled" South Vietnam at one point or another during the war. The Bush administration and its neoconservative allies have invested too much of their prestige in Petraeus to let someone as tangential to the war effort as the Prime Minister of Iraq get in the way. Remember, Petraeus is the Ulysses S. Grant to Bush's Lincoln, the Creighton Abrams to Bush's... Nixon? Anyway, he's not going anywhere.

In a related story, it looks like the same can be said for counter-insurgency expert and all around rock star Colonel H.R. McMaster, who's been turned down for promotion to brigadier general for a second time. Armchair Generalist has a discussion, as does Small War Journal.

--Robert Farley