US Lieutenant General David Petraeus.
Photograph: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/GettyThe expected appointment of Lieutenant General David Petraeus gets a thumbs-up from bloggers, who note his success in northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion.
"Petraeus is among the real experts on counter-insurgency, and did a fine job of making friends and mending fences when he was in charge of Mosul," writes Juan Cole on his Informed Comment blog.
Cole also thinks highly of Ryan Crocker, who will become the new US ambassador to Iraq, replacing Zalmay Khalilzad, who goes to the UN to replace John Bolton.
"Despite all the talk of the resurgence of the neoconservatives with their 'surge' (actually ramped up occupation) plan, this team is the farthest from neoconservative desires that you could possibly get," he argues.
Going off on another tack, Reliapundit at The Astute Bloggers speculates about the choice of Admiral William Fallon to head Central Command, replacing General John Abizaid.
"Why appoint a navy man to run Centcom - after all.... all the troops in iraq are army and marines. Could it really be because the Navy would lead any military move - like an embargo - against Iran, and also launch any pre-emptive military attack on Iran?"
Gen Petraeus wins the approval of Matt at Political Spaghetti.
"If you've read Thomas Ricks' Fiasco, you know that Lt Gen David Petraeus is one of the good guys. Read Ricks' book if you want to know what I'm talking about (it's one of the few books critical of the Iraq War that leaves you feeling hopeful about the military).
For those who have not read Fiasco, an excellent, if at times repetitive, book by the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks, Gen Petraeus is one of the few military commanders to emerge with any credit from Iraq. He quickly realised that battering down doors in the middle of the night and humiliating men in front of their families was not the best way to win hearts and minds.
Uncle Jimbo at Black Five agrees on the importance of having a counterinsurgency expert in charge in Iraq instead of a more conventionally-minded commander.
"With two active insurgencies to deal with I want someone a lot more focused on how the actions of his forces either help or hinder the effort to gain trust and support of the people away from the insurgents."
There have been several profiles of David Petraeus including this one by Newsweek's Rod Nordland, that takes into account some of the barbs thrown at the high-flying general.
