Afghanistan News & Discussion

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jun 2010 02:47

You got a whiff of that in the Afghan mineral wealth story. It was released by the US military.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 23 Jun 2010 03:01

ramana wrote:You got a whiff of that in the Afghan mineral wealth story. It was released by the US military.

There is something else going on here. The SD does not have the same kind of experts which it used to have - British experts. Why is that I dont have any clue yet.
But new graduates are taking up studies of ME policies. But in the meantime the Pentagon is taking the lead in policy making. Centcom has taken more of the role in the last 25 years.

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 23 Jun 2010 04:00

McChrystal is in Very Deep Trouble Right Now

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162- ... 03544.html

General Stanley McChrystal may be living out his final hours as the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan following disparaging comments he made regarding several top Washington officials.

"The last thing that President Obama needs is for somehow the impression to get out there that he can be kicked around and disrespected by one of his generals," CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer said today on Washington Unplugged. "I think General McChrystal has a real problem, and it's going to be very hard for him to survive."

This isn't the first time the general has been chastised by the president. Last year, McChrystal made negative comments regarding Vice President Joe Biden and received a tongue lashing, which won't make it any easier for him to get through round two, Schieffer said.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 23 Jun 2010 04:18

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news- ... ly-affairs
India likely to get role in Afghan mly affairs

ISLAMABAD – The ongoing row between the NATO forces and allied European countries regarding provisions of training for Afghan National Army is paving way for Indian ‘legalised’ presence in Afghanistan.
According to the information received from top representatives of the UN Afghanistan, a special delegation on behalf of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen landed in Kabul last week to discuss the situation with Afghan Government in the wake of reluctance of NATO’s European allies to cooperate any further in Afghanistan. Sources say that Indian diplomats were equally involved in these deliberations and the contractors of ‘private security sector,’ presumably the notorious Blackwater, were also present who are likely to be assigned a major role in Afghanistan’s military affairs in collusion with India. The award of lucrative $120 million to Blackwater in Afghanistan by the US Department of State is seen a pertinent move in this regard. The dwindling chances of training of Afghan forces by the European states are to blur further thus giving India all the needed justifications to ‘serve’ in Afghanistan

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 23 Jun 2010 04:24

http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news- ... -of-myth/1
The necessity of myth
M. Abul For Azl

Pallavas, whose dynasty ruled long in Indian Tamil Nadu, had to first justify their presence in South Asia and especially in the Peninsula. They did not care to answer the first question. But about the second, they say a young prince fell in love with a Naga princess of the Neth-erworld. When he was leaving her, he told her that if she set their child adrift with a young twig or creeper tied to its body, he would find it. The mother did so and the father found the child, who founded the Pallava dynasty. Fine. But which mot-her would abandon her newborn, with or without a twig, to the mercy of a river.
Things were easier in the primitive community with its free love. The mother usually did not know the father of the child, and did not need to, because the whole community was responsible for feeding and protecting it. It was everyone’s child. So there was no need to float it in any river. Well, not exactly. Free love existed only during the early and the high period of the primitive community. It had changed into group marriage with the appearance of property, group property but still property and that much before the formation of classes and states. So the explanation for the Pallava dynasty is pure myth

Pawki showing Sanskrit skill or man in need of Indian Visa .

In the early stages of food production, the villages had to appoint guards for the fields, cattle etc and the chief of the guard gradually became the “king”, who, as Marx said, lived little better than his servants. But when production became stable and the rulers could create dynasties, that had to be codified. There even celestial bodies were called in for help. Hence, the Moon and Sun dynasties in the Gangetic Valley. Even now, we have an emperor descended from the sun.
A rising system needs no justification. It conquers. Myths romanticise its triumph. As the Sanskrit poet Bhavabhuti puts it:
“From him, as from the eastern mountain,
Full and shining in the splendour of merit,
A joy to all in this world who are blessed with sight,
Sprang like the moon an only child.”

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 23 Jun 2010 05:57

^^^He misses the significance of the "river-floating" of "new-borns". It is such a recurring motif in ancient narratives in most civilizations, that it cannot be dismissed as a myth. It could point to more ritual significance and a lost interpretation of this as a rite by which previously dissimilar clans came together to produce "great heirs". Heck even in the revealed traditions, it is an established "myth" about Moses! Probably a reflection of Mesopotamian traditions which again could have borrowed or cross-fertilized with Indian motifs. Flowing river water could have meant (1) ritual cleansing (2) flow of time (3) flow of life [(2)+(3) = destiny] (4) "spirit" and force of "earth". Dunking the kid in a flowing river could signify a new beginning, brilliant destiny, etc.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Jun 2010 06:37

Water always means rebirth.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 07:24

McChrystal’s Fate in Limbo as He Prepares to Meet Obama

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/world ... ystal.html

The many Afghanistan team conflicts include complaints from the American ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, about Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who has been portrayed by some as disruptive and whose relationship with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan chilled last year after difficult meetings following the August election. For his part, Ambassador Eikenberry has had his own tensions with the mercurial Mr. Karzai.

In one episode that dramatized the building animosities, Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, wrote to Ambassador Eikenberry in February, sympathizing with his complaints about a visit Mr. Holbrooke had recently made to Afghanistan. In the note, which went out over unsecure channels, officials said, General Jones soothed the ambassador by suggesting that Mr. Holbrooke would soon be removed from his job.

The Jones note prompted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to complain to Mr. Obama, and her support for Mr. Holbrooke has kept him in his job. In the article, which was posted on the magazine’s Web site on Tuesday, one of General McChrystal’s aides is quoted as referring to General Jones as a “clown.”

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 08:07

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/ ... -be-fired/

The White House should not be surprised at their resentment after the rough handling General McChrystal received from “all the president’s men” during and after last summer’s Afghanistan policy review. They’re being repaid in kind.

General McChrystal’s comments in the Rolling Stone article, for which he has apologized, are on the edge of insubordination and by themselves could be forgiven. (He said he was “pretty disappointed” that President Obama wasn’t more prepared for their first meeting in the Oval Office, and he made disparaging remarks about Vice President Biden.) Of course, Defense Secretary Robert Gates removed Admiral William Fallon from command of Central Command in 2008 for much less.

...

If the Fallon case is any precedent, McChrystal’s career is over.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 23 Jun 2010 08:18

US pushing the good taliban angle.

I believe they will hand the country off to the Taliban and make a hasty exit soon.

-------------

U.N. to remove Taliban from sanctions list

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/1006 ... an_taliban

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 23 Jun 2010 08:20

More on McChrystal:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100623/ap_ ... mcchrystal

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 08:24

Gelb argues against changing McChrystal

http://www.politico.com/blogs/lauraroze ... ystal.html

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 23 Jun 2010 08:26

ramana wrote:Water always means rebirth.

OT, but sometimes water symbolizes the flow of Pranic energies through Pranic channels or nadis. Some people say that some mystics in western cultures were aware of such things - perhaps learning from India.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 08:35

Obama and his generals

http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2 ... s_generals

I do not know whether the reporting timelines support this inference, but it sure seems to me like the Rolling Stone story was McChrystal's staff retaliating for the equally disturbing attacks on McChrystal and Petraeus by White House political advisors in Jonathan Alter's semi-authorized account of the Afghan Strategy Review.

And the McChrystal interview accurately notes that other members of the Obama AfPak team are already on beltway insiders' short-lists to leave, opening up the possibility of widespread chaos at the top during the most critical year of the war so far.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 08:41

Uncivil-military relations

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... _relations

Whatever else it might mean, this article is yet another sign that the war is not going well, and the article itself paints a rather grim picture of the situation. Most of the commentary I've seen is focusing on whether McChrystal will or should be asked to resign, but I think the real question is what this tells us about the state of the war itself. When civilian leaders or uniformed commanders (or their aides) start taking pot shots at each other in public, it tells you that they are getting frustrated and that they are looking to pin the blame for failure on someone else. You would certainly not expect to see this sort of article to appear if the campaign was going swimmingly.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 23 Jun 2010 08:45

If there are no major policy differences between maacho Stanley boy and Obama, then is this tamasha another one of those great American political theater?

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 23 Jun 2010 08:52

Is this a MacArthur moment?

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 23 Jun 2010 09:04

The Obama administration is in deep trouble.

The economy is not recovering nearly as well as they would have liked. Job growth is still negative, and a double-dip recession looms on the horizon.

The BP oil spill, fairly or not, is becoming Obama's Katrina that won't go away.

The *only* trump card Obama had to play... Healthcare Reform... has already been played, and the effects have been less than impressive.

Even die-hard Obama supporters are getting tired of supporting his constant vacillation and aversion to commit himself. Meanwhile the Republicans are mobilizing. In November, it's very likely the Democrats will be handed a stinging defeat at the Congressional polls.

As a result of all this, Obama is likely to panic and confer sweeping powers on one or another of the camps advising him re: Afghanistan. If the US public is dissatisfied with the progress of WOT, it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back for Obama in 2012.

Current events seem to indicate that it won't be the Pentagon whom Obama entrusts with finding a solution to the Afghan war. I wonder who it will be... Biden? Clinton? Holbrooke?

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 23 Jun 2010 09:10

It could be that a floundering Obama Whitehouse fails to get re-elected, and he's a one-termer like Jimmy Carter - another Brzezinski pick.

If the Republicans put forth a smarter candidate than Palin, then it's possible they could win the 2012 elections to regain the Whitehouse. Hey, if the Tories could get back the PMO from Labour, then conservatives can make a comeback in the US.

Let's face it - Obama hasn't done anything amazing since gaining office - except handing Ted Kennedy's seat to the Republicans. This time, when people are asked, "are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" they'll have an unambiguous answer.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 09:27

Who's in Charge Here?

http://www.slate.com/id/2257818/

The whole business reflects something else at least as serious—the fractured state of this war and the utter disunity of command. The tension between McChrystal and Gen. Karl Eikenberry, once his rival and now the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, continues to seethe months after it should have been tamped down or one of them should have been let go. Holbrooke's role as envoy has been unclear ever since Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared, after getting yelled at one time too many, that he never wanted to meet with him again. And the International Security Assistance Force, the multinational alliance that runs the "coalition" headquarters in Kabul, is widely regarded as a fig leaf and a dysfunctional one at that.

Rudradev · Post by **Rudradev** » 23 Jun 2010 09:41

Holbrooke is a creature of the Hyperpower days when the US under Clinton could throw its weight around unchallenged, even in the former Soviet backyard of the Balkans. Back then he could pi$$ people off, throw his weight around, threaten and bully the leaders of tin-pot former Yugoslav republics with the weight of invincible air power behind him. And have his uncouth vulgarity touted as the "height of finessed diplomatic achievement" by the numbskulled Clintonistas at the State Department... Warren Christopher, Madeleine Halfbright and co.

The idiot thought that he could repeat the performance with stellar results in Af/Pak... no doubt believing that it had been his consummate diplomatic skills, rather than a prolonged air campaign over Serbia, which had been responsible for the US "victory" in former Yugoslavia.

Instead he found himself facing a Karzai who refused to be lectured by a bloated functionary of Holbrooke's class; TSPA jernails who ran rings around him in terms of wily underhandedness; a South Block full of impassive babus who kept him waiting in the hot sun instead of bowing meekly to his diktats on Cash-meere... and an adversary, the Taliban, who is far from cowed by the military might of the US, following a humiliating and indecisive decade of American counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Like a good Democrat, Holbrooke refuses to come to terms with the realities of the world around him. He still thinks he can bully and bluster his way to diplomatic success. And this is who Obama is pinning his Afghan hopes on? LOL!

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Jun 2010 10:21

Is this a smart argument?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/opini ... edman.html

The first question was hiding in plain sight: Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer.

If there is one thing Afghan males should not need to be trained to do, it’s to engage in warfare. That may be the only thing they all know how to do after 30 years of civil war and centuries of resisting foreign powers. After all, who is training the Taliban? They’ve been fighting the U.S. Army to a draw — and many of their commanders can’t even read.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 23 Jun 2010 12:14

Rudradev wrote:a South Block full of impassive babus who kept him waiting in the hot sun instead of bowing meekly to his diktats on Cash-meere..

Oh man, when the Indians want to do chai biskoot, they can really do chai biskoot. I do pity Shri Holbrook in that encounter. He was definitely the underdog.

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 23 Jun 2010 12:46

Afghanistan looking for Indian & Chinese help to tap mineral bonanza

“We are looking into our NATO partner countries; their soldiers are in Afghanistan. But practically speaking, the two countries that are in our neighbourhood, China and India, which are very much in need of these resources, they may actually be forthcoming more than other countries,” Pajhwok Afghan News agency quoted Said T. Jawad, Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States, as saying.

Mr. Jawad said in an interview to the agency that American companies had so far not shown much enthusiasm to develop Afghanistan's prodigious mineral wealth. “This is probably, because of the security situation in Afghanistan and the distance,” he observed.

During a meeting held on June 15, Mr. Shahrani invited Indian investments particularly for the development of Afghanistan's reserves of iron ore, copper, gold and coal, an official statement said. Afghanistan also sought Indian help for training Afghan geoscientists. Experts from the two sides are set for major brainstorming sessions in July on seismotectonics and remote sensing.
Meanwhile, China has already taken a head start in developing Afghan resources. The state-owned China Metallurgical Group (CMG) had in 2008 won a $4-billion bid to develop Afghanistan's giant Aynak copper mine. {That was probably the copper mine that Subramanyam Swami signed a deal with on behalf of GoI to develop when he was the minister} Kabul is also inviting bids for developing the Hajigak iron ore mine, one of the biggest in the world, located in the Bamyan province.

One puppeteer behind attacks on Indian interests in Afghanistan could be the Chinese who do not want Indian companies to partake the minerals bonanza. They may be doing it through the Pakistanis.

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 23 Jun 2010 12:54

abhishek_sharma wrote:Is this a smart argument?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/opini ... edman.html

The first question was hiding in plain sight: Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer.

If there is one thing Afghan males should not need to be trained to do, it’s to engage in warfare. That may be the only thing they all know how to do after 30 years of civil war and centuries of resisting foreign powers. After all, who is training the Taliban? They’ve been fighting the U.S. Army to a draw — and many of their commanders can’t even read.

It's a valid argument - but people will fight only for what they regard as a legitimate government. Western powers encouraged Karzai to rig the election. It's not that Karzai is wholly illegitimate, but that does make things harder.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 23 Jun 2010 13:05

Pranav wrote: It's a valid argument - but people will fight only for what they regard as a legitimate government. Western powers encouraged Karzai to rig the election. It's not that Karzai is wholly illegitimate, but that does make things harder.

Further more people will fight in the way, both as per methods and ideology that they are used to.

The training for ANA is as much culture of the fighting as it is the method of fighting.

However the chosen methods by west for both the above are wrong choices for fighting Taliban.

OTOH if you let them be, they may not fight Taliban anyway, but fight with them.

So essentially they are being taught to be not Taliban. The teaching is to take a section of population and turn them into lesser dangers for the west (RAPE vs TTP in Paqui lands)

The west is not a fool, it is confused and hamstrung because of competing motives and pulls, but they are not truly inane.

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 23 Jun 2010 16:55

Rudradev:

No doubt that thug Holbrook'e stock has taken a beating. As I point out also in a previous post, he was a demo God during the Balkan war, and there were talks then of confering the Nobel piss on him. The only reason he succeeded there was becasue of the threat, no empty one at that in retrospect, to bomb Milosevic & Co from the air. And this was done with impunity. Plus, the Russian were in dire straits and they abandoned their Serb brothers.

The situation in AfPak is that he has a lot of constraints. If there was the credible threat to reduce GHQ in Islamabad to a parking lot, he would have had his way there too. But we know preservation of TSPA is a supreme national strategic goal of USA. But I would be wary of writing Holbrooke's AfPak obituary just yet. If my reading of US opinion is correct, the end game in AfPak is the India card. Holbrooke with willing connivance from MMS & Co will deliver India to TSP: 1) Explicit agreement that India will have no teeth to support its presence in Afganisthan, and 2) India-TSP joint love making in Srinagar agreeemtn on paper, but in reality it will be Kashmiri Muslims & TSP love making, while India only gets to watch and change the bedsheets every morning; until one day it gets tired and quits.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 23 Jun 2010 18:54

Acharya wrote:People connected with Foggy bottom say that the foreign policy(at least the broad ME policy, Iraq and AfPak) is now taken over by the Pentagon completely.

It is as close as to a coup in Unkilbhoomi.

IMO, Mc boy stage managed this all. It was his way of getting out of Afghanistan.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 23 Jun 2010 23:42

Obama ousts McChrystal, replaces him with Petraeus

CRamS · Post by **CRamS** » 24 Jun 2010 03:47

Wonder what ISI strategy will be now that McChrystal is gone.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 24 Jun 2010 03:54

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_mcchrystal
McChrystal out; Petraeus picked for Afghanistan
Petraeus, who attended a formal Afghanistan war meeting at the White House on Wednesday, has had overarching responsibility for the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq as head of Central Command. He was to vacate the Central Command post after his expected confirmation, giving Obama another key opening to fill. The Afghanistan job is actually a step down from his current post but one that filled Obama's pre-eminent need.
Petraeus is the nation's best-known military man, having risen to prominence as the commander who turned around the Iraq war in 2007, applying a counterinsurgency strategy that has been adapted for Afghanistan.
He has a reputation for rigorous discipline. He keeps a punishing pace — spending more than 300 days on the road last year. He briefly collapsed during Senate testimony last week, apparently from dehydration. It was a rare glimpse of weakness for a man known as among the military's most driven.In the hearing last week, Petraeus told Congress he would recommend delaying Obama's prescribed pullout of U.S. forces from Afghanistan beginning in July 2011. He said security and political conditions in Afghanistan must be ready to handle a U.S. drawdown.
Waheed Omar, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said Petraeus "will also be a trusted partner." Karzai had been a lonely voice in speaking out in support of McChrystal. But Omar said of Petraeus: "He is the most informed person and the most obvious choice for this job" now that McChrystal is out.

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 24 Jun 2010 04:29

What a joke....Gen Betray-Us again! Now Nanci Pelosi, Ombaba and the other leftist liberal wimps in US can take their full page hate-ads they took out waging war on Petraeus and shove them up their orifices...

Suppiah · Post by **Suppiah** » 24 Jun 2010 04:31

After politicising the military and cynically manipulating generals for political benefit, Dems are losers...Now the bills are coming due...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 24 Jun 2010 04:50

Suppiah wrote:After politicising the military and cynically manipulating generals for political benefit, Dems are losers...Now the bills are coming due...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... lenews_wsj

This seems to work better:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 72990.html

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 24 Jun 2010 04:50

^ From above

Military resistance reached a crescendo under President George W. Bush. Fueled by Democrats eager to add kindling, generals openly feuded with Defense Department officials over the number of troops needed for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2006, in what has come to be known in the American military as the "revolt of the generals," dozens of senior retired officers publicly called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Military lawyers publicly opposed the administration over the use of military commissions to try al Qaeda leaders and whether the Geneva Conventions governed counterterrorism operations.

Liberals in the media and Congress eagerly joined the chorus for Mr. Rumsfeld's head. They manipulated the generals' revolt to support their opposition to the administration's Iraq and terrorism policies. They undermined the president's ability to receive forthright, confidential military advice. Presidents won't trust generals who may run to Congress or the press at the first sign of disagreement with the military's consensus advice. They traded short-term political gains against Mr. Bush for the Constitution's promise of long-term political stability.

Now the bill is coming due, and it will cost Democrats more dearly than Republicans. Scholars have observed that the officer corps has become increasingly conservative in the last few decades, the result of self-selection and the end of the draft, Republican Party outreach, and the disappearance of the national security wing of the Democratic Party. Soldiers who have risked their lives for their nation on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq do not like to hear elected politicians calling their wars unjust or devising the fastest way to withdraw.

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 24 Jun 2010 04:58

Natural Darwinism - the Democrats voted with their feet to abandon the military. Gore didn't want overseas ballots from US servicemen to be counted when it came down to the wire against Bush.

The Democrats have the same attitude that Nehru had towards the military. Now they will suffer the same security problems that India has.

Wait for the trumped up Samjhauta/Malegaon style allegations to come one day.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 24 Jun 2010 05:02

CRamS wrote:Wonder what ISI strategy will be now that McChrystal is gone.

Smile and do the same. If anything, Petraeus is more of a TSPA fan than McChrystal.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 24 Jun 2010 07:12

^ x2 to that. McChrystal was close to Karzai, Petraeus is chummy with Kayani.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Jun 2010 07:14

Obama Says Afghan Policy Won’t Change After Dismissal

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/po ... ystal.html

In a typical response from other military officials, one Army officer with multiple tours in Afghanistan expressed anger at the lack of discipline displayed by General McChrystal and his inner circle. But he warned that it was symptomatic of wider problems with Mr. Obama’s strategy and among his national security advisers.

“They brought this upon themselves and embarrassed the entire military as an institution,” said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid any punishment for criticizing his chain of command.

“Hopefully, the president uses this as an opportunity to refine his policy and objectives, and also to shuffle the rest of his Af-Pak team, as well,” he said, using the abbreviation for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. “McChrystal isn’t the only one who probably needs to move elsewhere.”

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Jun 2010 07:21

Short, Tense Deliberation, Then a General Is Gone

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/po ... ecide.html

Mr. Obama, aides say, consulted with advisers — some, like Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who warned of the dangers of replacing General McChrystal, others, like his political advisers, who thought he had to go. He reached out for advice to a soldier-statesman, Colin L. Powell. He identified a possible successor to lead the war in Afghanistan.

But this is the highest profile sacking of his presidency. The time between Mr. Obama’s first reading of the Rolling Stone article and his decision to accept General McChrystal’s resignation offers an insight into the president’s decision-making process under intense stress: He appears deliberative and open to debate, but in the end, is coldly decisive.