[Siena Dreaming]

This shows how significant McChrystal's stepping down was and how dangerous the situation there must be.

Petraeus called for this as a line in the sand IMO. Probably said he wouldn't take the helm unless the 5 year timeline was announced.

This is a huge humiliation for Obama whose henchmen were calling only last weekend for a pullout in July '11..a complete turnaround. The far left is going to be blazing mad.

[Blood of Tyrants]

I don’t think Petraeus agreed on a 5 year time line, but I’ll bet he told Obastard that he wouldn’t take the job unless he could modify the rules of engagement to what he wanted them to be and that Obastard would have to back down from the June 2011 pullout date.

[Thermalseeker]

The far left is going to be blazing mad.

I love a happy ending.....

[SevenMinusOne]

McCrystal and Pretraeus played chess while Obama/Biden and their top Civ aides, Complete fools, both (Eikenberry & Holbrooke)were playing checkers......Gen. Pretraeus is now positioned to set the complete agenda with Stan (and Pak) going forward. Or control at least 90% of the direction. Obama cannot afford to be seen as losing the support of Pretraeus, at all, with the rest of the Military and more importantly with the public.

Mil HQs across the board know this WH does not have its heart in this fight....Be that Stan or GWOT. But they are together nonetheless for the next 2 1/2 years and have to make do. With The Obama Admin continually talking "pull out dates"....There was no way for McCrystal's plan to be accomplished ...So McCrystal basically called Obama out.

He was either going to keep McCrystal in charge and have his Admin shut up on pull out dates and loosen ROEs, (ROEs on the conventional guys...Understand, SOF ROEs remained whatever they deemed neccessary)....or Obama was going to fire him and have him replaced...(thus with that, the Military would get the same result it needed, as a new General would be in a much more powerful position to call the shots over Obama with regards to what needs to happen on the ground in Stan). That is exactly what has happened with Pretraeus these past couple days...