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Saturday 21 November 2009

President David Petraeus?

Wednesday, 14th October 2009

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

Until he gives a Shermanesque denial - and perhaps even that won't be enough to silence the speculation - you can bet that there'll be people writing about General David Petraeus's political potential. Can't be avoided. Too much time before the next election; too much space to fill. The most recent effort I've seen comes from Peter Beinart writing at the Daily Beast.

As tends to be the case with such articles, Beinart spends more time entertaining historical comparisons than he does on anything as tedious as practicalities or probabilities. Naturally, this means that he suggests that Petraeus could be just like Dwight Eisenhower. They're both generals, you see? Fine. Apart from that, however, well it turns out that there isn't very much apart from that...

But since this meme will be with us for some time yet, let me suggest a few problems with this otherwise entertaining thesis:

1. It supposes that Petraeus has political aspirations and that he's actually a Republican*. The latter may be the case, there's little evidence to support the former.

2. A 2012 campaign seems exceedingly improbable. For that to happen, Afghanistan would a) have to become a disaster, b) Petraeus would have to resign, blaming Barack Obama for failing in his duty and c) the public would have to back the former ~~Chairman of the Joint Chiefs~~ CENTCOM** commander rather than the President.

3. I suspect many senior officers at the Pentagon would be horrified if this were to happen. It would politicise the military and place enormous strains upon the chain of command, not just now but in the future too, driving a wedge between the military and the civilian population. Even Douglas MacArthur realised he couldn't credibly run for the Presidency.

4. As a general rule, outsiders don't fare too well in the political arena. Eisenhower is an exception, not the rule. And in any case, we're a long way from 1952 and America is a very different, probaby more complicated, place. Plus, for all his achievements Petraeus himself might blush at comparisons with Ike.

5. Related to 4, politics is difficult. Some Democrats thought General Wesley Clark was the answer to their perceived "national security credibility gap" in 2004. He had a pretty good resume after all: Bosnia, NATO chief etc etc. But Clark proved hopeless on the campaign trail and was rarely convincing.

6. National Security isn't enough. Other issues matter too and Presidential elections are rarely single-issue campaigns. 2012 and, even more probably, 2016 are not likely to be a re-run of 2004. At least one hopes not. What does Petraeus have to say on jobs or immigration?

7. 2012 is, I think, a non-runner largely because it would require the general to run against the administration he served. He'd also need to start preparing next year. Last-minute, cobbled-together campaigns rarely fare well. So 2016 it would have to be. and that's so far in the future that, entertaining as such speculation is, it scarcely seems worth thinking about at this stage.

8. Even then, mind you, comparison with Ike seem strained if for no other reason that when Eisenhower ran the Democrats had held the White House for 20 years. A change seemed a reasonable notion. 2016, even if Obama wins a second term, will not be quite the same.

None of this means it can't happen, nor that it isn't an entertaining parlour game. But that's all it is and it's unlikely to happen too. At least, that's how it looks right now.

*UPDATE: Ah. Jason Zengerle points out that the General is, or has been, a registered Republican. Of the Rockefeller variety. That is to say, of the type that is virtually extinct in the modern GOP. Medals and ribbons need to do a lot of heavy lifting to overcome that disadvantage.

**Doh. Corrected. Thanks to Anthony in the comments section.

Filed under: Army (5 more articles) , Eisenhower (1 more articles) , GOP (140 more articles) , Petraeus (3 more articles) , Washington (102 more articles) , White House (2 more articles)

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Conservative Cabbie

October 14th, 2009 12:19pm Report this comment

Alex

I think you are right on Petreaus. However, a possibly more likely scenario is Gen McChrystal as a potential VP nominee in 2012. By all accounts he doesn't see eye to eye with the Obama administration and has reportedly threatened to resign. If Obama is not seen to be supportive of McChrystal and he does in fact resign, putting him on the ticket would serve as a constant reminer to an electorate who may, in 2012, be worried about Americas perceived decline.

That is pure speculation on my part. it says nothing about McChrystals politics or his suitability, just that it might be an interesting electoral tactic.

ally

October 14th, 2009 3:10pm Report this comment

Good luck to him. Unfortunately the stats don't look good, despite the perceived value of being experienced in the national security arena:

1992: decorated flyer (Bush) beaten by draft dodger
1996: even more decorated soldier (Dole) beaten by draft dodger
2000: Gore (who never served) beaten by deserter
2004: decorated Vietnam vet beaten by deserter
2008: genuine, gold-plated war hero beaten by a guy who's never been out of Chicago.

Americans love to think that national security experience is some sort of golden bullet (sorry, couldn't resist that one) - but history shows otherwise.

Personally I'm thinking about donating to Palin as I like train crashes and think she should be encouraged to make a fool of herself again...

Anthony

October 14th, 2009 3:23pm Report this comment

Alex,

Excellent post. Very good indeed. Just a quick point - Petraeus is not and has never been CJCS, he's CENTCOM commander.

I think it's conceivable, just, that Petraeus may end up on a Presidential ticket at some point in the future (I think he'd do a better job of it than Wes Clark did), but it's highly unlikely.

Also worth bearing in mind that we now know he's been suffering from prostate cancer. Hardly a bar to running for President - and I suspect if anyone's going to outlive us all, it'll be him - but it's another factor that points to the negative column.

Kansas

October 14th, 2009 3:57pm Report this comment

A few things. One, VP Gore did serve and was in the Army for I one enlistment.

Gen Petraeus has no political ambitions as stated in his Shermanesque responses as so clearly pointed out your posting, he has also been known to use the Country singer Lorie Morgan's song, What Part of No Don't You Understand in his responses to running for President.

He has a long way to go hopefully in uniform still and isn't going to move to the polticial side.

ndm

October 14th, 2009 7:56pm Report this comment

I have never really understood the American obsession with warrior politicians. I guess it is one facet of the military-industrial complex that forms such a large part of American business. It could perhaps be a reaction to the lawyer class that, with a few exceptions such as Tom the ratcatcher, dominates the upper echelons of American politics. Britain seems to draw its political class from a broader spectrum of society although it looks like Cameron is intent on regressing to the Edwardian Eton, Oxford and The Guards - just kidding about The Guards.

On a side note it is interesting to ponder what would have happened to the Department of Homeland Security had president Bush appointed Jack Welch, then recently retired from GE, to start it up instead of Tom Ridge. It is perhaps a shame that more top American business people don't slum it for a while by entering Government service like that - after all, this has worked just dandy for Goldman Sachs which seems to understand the importance of keeping its hand on the tiller or should that be in the till.

Andrew Sullivan linked yesterday to a panel discussion with four high-profile Republican blogger/commentators with some interesting commentary on it by Mark Thompson of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

While I think it completely plausible to de-emphasize tax cuts, any move to an emphasis on deficit hawkishness is meaningless without addressing the elephant in the room that is defense spending. Addressing that element requires abandoning nationalism (aka "defense" conservatism) as a fundamental tenet of conservatism.

Now, perhaps, Petraeus would join a team arguing he understands the military and knows how America can get defence spending under control - but I really doubt that he could or would work to reign in spending. After nine years of a war in Afghanistan that has long since lost its point and five years of a war in Iraq that never had a point I don't think the upper echelons of the US military are coming off well. I don't remember many one and two and three and four star generals resigning because of an obviously flawed strategic plan for the invasion of Iraq.

ndm

October 14th, 2009 8:00pm Report this comment

Conservative Cabbie writes:

If Obama is not seen to be supportive of McChrystal

That is not the way it works. The onus is on McChrystal to support the President and to resign if he can't or won't be. I think that in the run up to the war in Iraq senior military figures should have resigned in protest as Bush kept cutting troop numbers down to make the war acceptable politically. But not one of them did so and so they must share the blame with Bush for the fiasco in Iraq.

ndm

October 14th, 2009 8:00pm Report this comment

Conservative Cabbie writes:

If Obama is not seen to be supportive of McChrystal

ndm

October 14th, 2009 9:00pm Report this comment

James Fallows has a great post on the interaction between the President and his Generals:

And as a matter of policy, the point I meant to make is that a president should of course listen to his generals on questions of military operations, trade-offs, resources, etc. But it's worth remembering from Civics 101 that they must listen to him on questions of larger national interest and strategy.