As top military official in Iraq, General David Petraeus followed the same formula that he used in his previous tours there, first as commander of the Mosul district and later as the officer in charge of training Iraqi security forces. He gained short-term results by passing out crates of weapons and bags of money to anybody who wanted them (which was everybody), then he posted press releases telling everyone how brilliant he was, and then he shrugged when things fell apart for the poor knee knocker who relieved him.
As top dog in Iraq, Petraeus caught an enormous break in Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr's decision to declare a cease fire in August 2007, and again when Sadr agreed to a second cease fire in March 2008 after Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki launched an offensive against Sadr's Mahdi Army and botched it, and yet again when Sadr recently announced that he'll turn his Mahdi force into a social service organization. For those small blessings, Petraeus can probably thank the influence of Grand Ayatolla Ali al Sistani and Shiite brass in Iran (i.e., the guys he blames for all his blunders.)
So what does this mean?
Come September, King David will move upstairs and take the reins of Central Command, at which point he'll be praetorian governor of Egypt, the Arabias, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the rest of the 'Stans.
Which of course allows him to stab Obama in the back, and make his own run in 2012 as the "I told you so" candidate.
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