A new era as General David Petraeus takes over US command in Afghanistan

After sacking General Stanley McChrystal, his predecessor, President Obama declared that the person in charge was to change but the policy on Afghanistan which he had outlined in his statement in December last year would stay the same.

However, personalities do make a difference even if the overall strategy remains fixed, and General Petraeus, with his unrivalled experience and political skills, has the ability to put some spark into a campaign which has been faltering through a combination of increased aggression by the Taleban and mixed signals from Washington and other Nato capitals about the coalition’s determination to stay the course.

No one should underestimate the progress achieved by General McChrystal during his year of duty as the top commander in Afghanistan. Working unforgiving hours he sought both to push along the military campaign and to forge the closest possible relations with President Karzai and his key Cabinet ministers to ensure that the Afghan Government was supportive of, and committed to, the goals he wished to meet.

As a result, General Petraeus is in no sense having to pick up a failed mission. Indeed, as commander of US Central Command until President Obama asked him last week to go to Kabul, he had oversight of the campaign and was as fully involved as General McChrystal, although not on a 24-hour basis.

However, as a Pentagon source said in reacting to General Petraeus’s new appointment: “If he can achieve in Afghanistan what he achieved in Iraq he will become even more of a legend than he already is.”

It seems almost unjust for so much to be expected of one man. After the debacle over General McChrystal’s imprudent comments published in Rolling Stone magazine, President Obama said that the war in Afghanistan was not all about one man. He should have added: “Unless it’s Petraeus.”

Now the burden of expectation placed on General Petraeus’s shoulders is so great that even in the US Senate, where there are rising concerns about the way the campaign in Afghanistan is going, there is a new feeling of optimism that with such a man in charge — “a true American hero”, as Senator John McCain, Republican Vietnam war hero, likes to say — things are going to get better. Their optimism may be premature.