Let's hope that Obama can channel Truman if necessary

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/story/125795/

Keane had operated on the assumption that a Democratic president would probably not take the political risk of rejecting Petraeus' recommendation on the pace of troop withdrawal from Iraq. Woodward quotes Keane as telling Gates, "Let's assume we have a Democratic administration and they want to pull this thing out quickly, and now they have to deal with General Petraeus and General Odierno. There will be a price to be paid to override them."

Obama told Petraeus in Baghdad last July that, if elected, he would regard the overall health of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps and the situation in Afghanistan as more important than Petraeus' obvious interest in maximizing U.S. troop strength in Iraq, according to Time magazine's Joe Klein.

But judging from Petraeus' shock at Obama's Jan. 21 decision, he had not taken Obama's previous rejection of his arguments seriously. That miscalculation suggests that Petraeus had begun to accept Keane's assertion that a newly elected Democratic president would not dare to override his policy recommendation on troops in Iraq.