Giuliani - Petraeus, the perfect ticket in 2008!


A (GOP) Surge For Petraeus?

Election 2008: A leading British newspaper calls the architect of the successful surge in Iraq the second most influential conservative in America. Gen. David Petraeus has changed the political future of Iraq. Will he change ours as well?

When the Daily Telegraph compiled its list of the 100 most influential conservatives and liberals in the U.S., it did so not on political prominence or party identification, but on "influence" — or, as the newspaper put it, the people who "do, and will, most affect American politics, both in terms of ideas and the enactment of policy."

On that basis, Gen. Petraeus merits the second slot, if not the first, which went to the former mayor of New York and GOP presidential contender Rudy Giuliani. Before Petraeus took over as commander in Iraq, our forces faced a difficult present and the war had an uncertain future, much as our nation faced in the summer of 1864.

Al-Qaida in Iraq thought it had the war won, and the Democrats thought Iraq would lead to a political surge that would retake the White House and expand their control of Congress. Now, Osama bin Laden urges his followers not to give up hope as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plead that there's still time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

According to the Telegraph's criteria, Petraeus' idea of a surge in forces and a change in strategy has indeed transformed Iraqi, and as a result, American, politics. While not yet won, the war that Sen. Reid proclaimed as "lost" sees al-Qaida reeling as the Arab street rises up on our side, not theirs.

Last Friday, the visiting chairman of the Anbar Provincial Council, Abdulsalam Mohammed, said in Washington: "Al-Qaida is almost defeated in Anbar, except for only small parts in the province."

Mohammed has been a leader in the so-called "Anbar Awakening" in a province that had been given up as lost until the surge planned and executed by Petraeus.

The Telegraph sees "this highly-respected scholar-warrior, educated at West Point and Princeton, as a potential future president."

Those who saw his poised presentation on the status in Iraq before Congress, documenting the progress without downplaying the obstacles, would tend to agree. Would he lead an "American Awakening" someday?

Sabah Kadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, told the Independent, another British newspaper, that he discussed Petraeus' future when the general was head of training and recruitment for the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008," Khadim related, "and he said, 'No, that would be too soon.' "

Hardly a Shermanesque "If nominated, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve." Ulysses S. Grant, who with Gen. Sherman changed tactics and surged to victory in 1865, accepted both his nomination and election in 1868.

As the Telegraph notes, Petraeus would be the first general to reach the White House since Dwight Eisenhower won in 1952. Eisenhower, like Petraeus, knew the difficulties and uncertainties of war, from the near-catastrophe at Omaha Beach, to the slugfest in the hedgerow country of northern France, to the unplanned-for 1944 Nazi offensive in the Ardennes.

Petraeus has no illusions about the difficulty or the necessity of winning the war against Islamofascist extremism in Iraq. Having seen his troops killed by explosively formed penetrators made in Iran, he does not share the Pollyannic faith in negotiations with Tehran of an Obama or a Clinton. He might talk softly, but he would be prepared to use a very big stick.

In contrast to our do-nothing, investigation-happy Congress, Petraeus has produced results that will make both Iraq and America safer. He has succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Someday soon, he may win the hearts and minds of the American people as well.

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