by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n David Petraeus\u2019s resignation marks the end of one of the great postwar military and government careers \u2014 his successful surge in Iraq being analogous to and as impressive as Matthew Ridgway\u2019s salvation of Korea or Sherman\u2019s sudden taking of Atlanta that saved Lincoln\u2019s and the Union cause before the 1864 elections. In a book due out in late spring, The Savior Generals, I argue that his achievements were comparable to those of the best of history\u2019s maverick commanders who were asked to save wars deemed lost \u2014 and did. But for now, the explanation of Petraeus\u2019s resignation unfortunately raises more questions than it answers, in a number of significant ways:<\/p>\n 1) Fairly or not, questions will be raised why this Washington-style Friday-afternoon resignation occurred after rather than before the election \u2014 a question that does not necessarily suggest that Petraeus did not take the proper nonpartisan course. But just days after this Tuesday, we are already beginning to hear of all sorts of \u201csudden\u201d news: the Iranian attack on a US drone; the plight of the Hurricane Sandy victims (400,000 still without power? gas rationing, tens of thousands homeless, exposure to cold?, etc.) as much more severe than we were led to believe; the sudden publicity on the \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d; and the Benghazi hearings. In that unfortunate politicized landscape comes the Petraeus bombshell.<\/p>\n 2) We were beginning to sense that the crime of Benghazi (not listening to pre-attack requests for increased security; not sending help immediately from the annex to the besieged consulate; not rushing in additional military forces during the hours-long attack) and the cover-up (inventing the narrative of a spontaneous demonstration gone wild to support a pre-election administration narrative of an impotent al Qaeda, a successful Libya, a positive Arab Spring, and a cool, competent commander-in-chief, slayer of bin Laden and architect of momentous Middle East change) were not the entire story of the 9\/11\/2012 attack: Why was there a consulate at all in Benghazi, given that most nations have shut down their main embassies in Tripoli? Why was there such a large CIA contingent nearby \u2014 what were they doing and why and for whom? Why did the ambassador think he needed more security when so many CIA operatives were stationed just minutes away? What was the exact security relationship between the annex and the consulate, and why the apparent quiet about it? Who exactly were the terrorist hit-teams, and did they have a particular agenda, and, if so, what and for whom? All these questions had not been answered and probably would have been raised during the scheduled Petraeus testimony \u2014 which is apparently now canceled, but why that is so, no one quite knows. And if Hillary Clinton departs, and perhaps Susan Rice and James Clapper as well, then the principals of the decision-making chain leave with more questions raised than answered. We are sort of back to a Watergate-like timeline of a scandal raised but not explored in a first term, only to blow up in the second.<\/p>\n 3) If rumors are true that the liaison may have involved biographer Paula Broadwell, co-author of an extremely favorable biography of Petraeus, then there are additional ethical issues that, fairly or not, call into question Broadwell\u2019s\u00a0bona fides<\/em>\u00a0as an author and the portrait of Petraeus in her warmly received book. And if the FBI was involved, then additional questions arise over the reasons they also became interested \u2014 when, why, how, and on whose prompting?<\/p>\n 4) Because of both Petraeus\u2019s sterling reputation and his high office, infidelity takes on greater importance than if it were \u2014 how absurd to write this \u2014 merely that of a lesser figure like Bill Clinton, whose serial miscreant conduct was taken for granted, even when he was a sitting president. If the affair occurred while Petraeus was general, it contradicted the code of military justice; if while at the CIA, it posed a potential security breach.<\/p>\n 5) For most of us, however, Petraeus is forever frozen as the hero of 2007\u201308, when, battered by the congressional hearings (Hillary Clinton\u2019s \u201csuspension of disbelief\u201d) and\u00a0ad hominem<\/em>\u00a0attack ads in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cGeneral Betray US\u201d), he nonetheless pressed ahead and broke the back of the insurgency \u2014 in part because of his competence, his unmatched reputation, and the talented circle around him. After he came down from Olympus in 2008, his subsequent billets in Afghanistan and at the CIA took on political significance, given the Obama administration\u2019s paradoxical and obsessive desire to affect his career by keeping him close by, while failing to appoint him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, or supreme NATO commander \u2014 appointments that were offered to those of lesser stature. In 2007, the Left went after him as a \u201cBush general\u201d; in 2009, the Right was disappointed in him for his sudden close, personal relationship with Obama. The truth was always that he sought to serve his country regardless of politics.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner David Petraeus\u2019s resignation marks the end of one of the great postwar military and government careers \u2014 his successful surge in Iraq being analogous to and as impressive as Matthew Ridgway\u2019s salvation of Korea or Sherman\u2019s sudden taking of Atlanta that saved Lincoln\u2019s and the Union cause before the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[150,100],"tags":[1045,1029,151,163],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-5m","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":330,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/too-many-narratives-to-get-straight\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":0},"title":"Too Many Narratives to Get Straight?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner At some point the prurient angle of the Petraeus story that alone enticed a reluctant media into becoming tangentially interested in Benghazi-gate \u2014 in the way the deaths of four Americans never did \u2014 will die down. Then we are left with largely three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":326,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-what-a-tangled-web\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":1},"title":"Oh What a Tangled Web","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 21, 2012","format":"gallery","excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Supporters of President Obama have dubbed those who question administration statements about Libya as either partisans or conspiracy theorists, on the premise that the administration had no reason to dissimulate. But in fact, it had plenty of political reasons not to be candid,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Benghazi"","block_context":{"text":"Benghazi","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/benghazi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/oh-we-forgot-to-tell-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":2},"title":"Oh, We Forgot to Tell You . . .","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, etc.) wins re-election, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years \u2014 mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-short-history-of-amorous-generals\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":3},"title":"A Short History of Amorous Generals","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Defining Ideas Many were as pursuant of women as they were of the enemy \u2014 and the former rarely impaired the latter. \u201cYou\u2019re a very bad man.\u201d So yelled Dorothy at the Wizard of Oz, once the imposing, larger-than-life face on the screen was revealed to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Political Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Political Culture","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/american-culture\/political-culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1348,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-tale-of-two-surges\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":4},"title":"A Tale of Two Surges","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services From 2007 to 2009, a surge of 20,000 troops under the generalship of David Petraeus saved a mostly lost war in Iraq. Petraeus\u2019s counterinsurgency doctrine helped win over the population, as the surge in troops gave greater security to Iraq\u2019s government and military.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8988,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-administration-needs-to-abandon-its-petraeus-obsession\/","url_meta":{"origin":332,"position":5},"title":"Obama Administration Needs to Abandon Its Petraeus Obsession","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Tribune Media Services In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae. The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or \"Trotskyized,\" all the images of any past kingpin who became politically\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"rfr","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/rfr-e1454252522115.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}