“War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president.”

That was President Obama’s explanation for ousting General Stanley McChrystal from leading the war in Afghanistan.   McChrystal’s recent comments in Rolling Stone made his “resignation” inevitable.  The article is called The Runaway General: Stanley McChrystal, Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House.

Quite a title.

The article reveals the growing frustration between Obama and McChrystal.  It seems they got off to a good start: When Obama took office he fired Gen David McKiernan and replaced him with McChrystal as the top general in Afghanistan.  Obama made clear his goal to refocus the war effort to Afghanistan during his presidential campaign, “I want the American people to understand we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Queda in Pakistan and Afghanistan.” Obama then made McChrystal the key element in that plan.

Unfortunately, the war in Afghanistan is still a mess.  Obama never uses the word “victory” when talking about that war.  As Major Gen. Bill Mayville, McChrystal’s chief of operations in Afghanistan states in the Rolling Stone article, “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win.  This is going to end in an argument.”   Obama’s words “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” are still elusive hopes for a war that transcends anyone’s ability to control it.

Still, after reading the article, it’s hard for me to find the smoking gun that got McChrystal fired.  I wonder if this is another case of the media fanning the flames of rivalry.  Indeed, McChrystal and his buddies say some obnoxious things in the article, but Obama clearly knew of McChrystal’s life-long struggle with authority figures.  Before the Rolling Stone article he had been quoted calling Vice President Joe Biden’s war strategy “short sighted” and that it would lead to the state of “Chaos-istan.”  So, why fire him now?

There is growing frustration with this war.  But maybe that’s the general problem with war.  War is based on frustrated relationships between peoples and nations.  Frustration always needs an outlet and  McChrystal has become the outlet.

Obama’s statement that “War is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president” shows his great acumen.  War, indeed, is bigger than anyone.  It has a life of its own.  It takes on a divine status.  The article ends suggesting this very divine status: “So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war.”  The very strategy that was to end the war has only made the war seem perpetual. 

As the realization settles in that this war is uncontrollable, frustration permeates the military landscape.  War, indeed, is bigger.  So McChrystal had to be replaced by Petraeus, yet has anything really changed?   

_{Photo: Getty}