Can he do in Afghanistan what he did in Iraq?
Gen. David Petraeus carved out a reputation for himself as a resourceful, unorthodox commander by helping to pull Iraq back from the edge. He has since even been mentioned as a candidate for president. Now, he’s going to lead what in his own words is “the tougher fight” in Afghanistan, taking over from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and risking the reputation he built. “Where Iraq is an urban, oil-rich country with an educated middle class, Afghanistan is a shattered state whose social fabric and physical infrastructure has been ruined by three decades of war,” the New York Times reports. “In Iraq, the insurgency was in the cities; here, it is spread across the mountains and deserts of the country’s forbidding countryside.” In Afghanistan, Gen. Petraeus will be directly responsible for its success or failure. He will take command of the campaign six months into an 18-month-long strategy that will need to show progress for President Obama to continue.