Another idol betrays them

Poor, poor conservatives. All their idols have betrayed them. The bailout = socialism, for instance. But there's one they can count on, one stalwart at whose altar they can worship, one whom they can elevate to semi-divine status in his earthly incarnation: General David Petraeus, the man who made the surge work.

And yet... Appearing at the Heritage Foundation (whose members probably wish he would run for president), he declined to advocate any "surge" in Afghanistan:

“Some of the concepts used in Iraq are transplantable [to Afghanistan] while others perhaps are not,” he said. “Every situation is unique.”

Petraeus pointed to efforts by Hamid Karzai’s government to negotiate a deal with the Taliban that would potentially bring some Taliban members back to power, saying that if they are “willing to reconcile,” it would be “a positive step.”

In saying that, Petraeus implicitly allied with U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Last week, McKiernan rejected the idea of replicating the blend of counterinsurgency strategy employed in Iraq. “The word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is the word ’surge,’” McKiernan said, opting against recruiting Pashtun tribal fighters to supplement Afghan security forces against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. “There are countless other differences between Iraq and Afghanistan,” he added.

McCain, however, has argued that the Afghanistan war is ripe for a direct replication of Petraeus’ Iraq strategy of population-centric counterinsurgency. “Sen. Obama calls for more troops,” McCain said in the Sept. 26 debate, “but what he doesn’t understand, it’s got to be a new strategy, the same strategy that he condemned in Iraq. It’s going to have to be employed in Afghanistan.”

McCain qualified that statement in Tuesday’s debate, but clung to it while discussing Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Gen. Petraeus had a strategy,” McCain said, “the same strategy — very, very different, because of the conditions and the situation — but the same fundamental strategy that succeeded in Iraq. And that is to get the support of the people.”

And there's more, so much more. Like this:

Petraeus also came out unambiguously in his talk at Heritage for opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion and to perform advance work to understand the motivations of his interlocutors.

All that was the subject of one of the most contentious tussles between McCain and Obama in the first presidential debate, with Obama contending that his intent to negotiate with foreign adversaries without “precondition” did not mean that he would neglect diplomatic “preparation.”

McCain, apparently perceiving an opportunity for attack, Tuesday again used Obama’s comments to attack his judgment. “Sen. Obama, without precondition, wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions,” McCain said, referring to Iran.

Yet Petraeus emphasized throughout his lecture that reaching out to insurgent groups — some “with our blood on their hands,” he said — was necessary to the ultimate goal of turning them against irreconcilable enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Petraeus favorably cited the example of one of his British deputies, who in a previous assignment had to negotiate with Martin McGuiness of the Irish Republican Army, responsible for killing some of the British commander’s troops. The British officer, Petraeus said, occasionally wanted to “reach across the table” and choke his former adversary but understood that such negotiations were key to ending a war.

and this:

Unlike his three recent rounds of congressional testimony, Petraeus did not discuss withdrawal from Iraq. He did not issue warnings that withdrawal — which Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki support, while McCain instead calls for “victory” — would lead to a downward spiral of violence.

While the general warned that there were several “potential storm clouds” threatening to undermine progress, he said that Iraq was on a more stable footing since his last appearance on Capitol Hill in April. He never said terms like “victory” or “success” that McCain uses, and which the GOP nominee frequently chides Obama for avoiding.

Poor John McCain and Sarah Palin. Who are they going to hold up and venerate now as the shining icons of the truth they and they alone know? McCain mentioned Petraeus six times in the first debate (calling him a "great general" who "has done a brilliant job") and four times in the second debate (including that bizarre statement that "Now, General Petraeus had a strategy, the same strategy -- very, very different, because of the conditions and the situation -- but the same fundamental strategy that succeeded in Iraq.") and Palin mentioned him four times, calling him "a great American hero". I wonder if he'll get mentioned in the next one...

Oh, who am I kidding? Whether Petraeus agrees with them or not won't stop them from holding him up as an icon of their warrior-worshipping war-mongering foreign policy. (This fetishization of the armed forces is a disturbing trend in American politics, particularly on the right, and I say that as a veteran. But like everything else this pair of candidates does or says, there's no need for Petraeus to be in reality what they want him to be.

Still, if John McCain has moments where he looks back over the last decade of his life and reflects on what he's become, this may be yet another drop of bitterness.

(Transcripts: Debate 1 Debate 2 VP debate)