Caveat: Exit Strategy, Squared

Now Obama has to worry not just about an exit strategy for Afghanistan, but he also has to worry about an exit strategy for his relationship with Gen. McChrystal – and it's looking like that "exit" has very few "success scenarios," too.  He can't just fire McChrystal – since that would leave a martyred loose cannon, a la MacArther v. Truman, 1951.  He can't just pat him on the head and say get back to work, since that would leave Obama looking weakened by an insubordinate military man, which is exactly the sort of grist the loony right craves.

The only way I can see Obama getting out of this relatively painlessly is to emerge from some extended head-butting with McChrystal as new best-buddies – perhaps even with a promotion for McChrystal, at least in terms of authority or responsibility, if not outright title.  Which may be exactly what McChrystal was hoping for, when he loosed his tongue for the record.

Perhaps this just goes to confirm something I've long suspected about life in the world:  the truly ambitious can often effectively advance their careers by means of a well-placed insubordination.  McChrystal is someone accustomed to taking risks.  This may all have been a very calculated, manipulative, and inconveniently but necessarily very public request for a heart-to-heart meeting with the boss, and not the gaffe everyone insists on calling it.

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