Waiting to hear from the General

Jim Hoagland:

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The general is David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. President Bush says the report that Petraeus will deliver in mid-September will become the centerpiece of his Iraq strategy. Rarely has so much depended on one man and his assessment of what he has accomplished in just seven months.

This situation will not faze the extraordinarily self-confident and ambitious Petraeus. When he was awarded his fourth star in January at the relatively young age of 54, his peers joked among themselves that at last his rank had caught up with his ego. Among the traits the general shares with his president is a deficit of doubt in himself and his troops.

The promise of Petraeus's arrival has already helped Bush buy time and temporarily stanch the hemorrhaging of vital congressional Republican support for the war. "The Washington clock" that was said to be outracing the Baghdad clock only a few weeks ago -- as the Democratic majority moved to mandate U.S. withdrawals, then pulled back -- has come to a stop as the Capitol waits for Petraeus.

Much decorated and a brilliant articulator of war-fighting doctrine, Petraeus will be no easy target for war critics of either party. The preliminary signals are that he will report authentic -- if still fragile -- signs of progress in establishing security in Baghdad and Anbar province. He may even ask for patience and time to continue what he has begun. He will not say much about political reconciliation, because there is so little to say that is positive.

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Hoagland goes on to talk about the problems in the reconciliation process without mention of the grass roots reconciliation that is behind the success of the surge. It is something the critics of the Iraq policy have overlooked, but I doubt that Gen. Petraeus will. The General is a very intelligent man and he is proving his critics wrong and some of them resent his success in doing so as much as they resent his success in Iraq. Their snide remarks will be no match for the facts he brings to the table.