https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/12/10/how-good-a-general-was-petraeus/feed/HotAir is the leading conservative blog for breaking news and commentary covering the Biden administration, politics, media, culture, and current elections.en-usTue, 09 Jun 2026 03:52:09 -0400<![CDATA[n the weeks since Petraeus’s resignation, some of his detractors have argued that his accomplishment in Iraq was merely to put an acceptable face on defeat. This is absurd. Petraeus was asked to shepherd a disastrous war; his achievements are real and substantial, and shouldn’t be obscured by something as irrelevant as an extramarital affair. By 2006, Iraqi society was disintegrating, and there were growing signs that the country’s neighbors—Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Syria—were preparing to intervene more forcefully. It seemed possible that Iraq would implode and take the whole region down with it. If Petraeus and his band had not got their chance—and, reading Kaplan’s book, it seems a miracle that they did—things could have gone terribly worse.]]>Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:15:13 -0500<![CDATA[Allahpundit]]>https://hotair.com/headlines/2012/12/10/how-good-a-general-was-petraeus-n98155