MOVES. Series of interesting personnel moves today... Juan Cole has a good take. The biggest shift in tone has to be the replacement of John Bolton with Zalmay Khalizad at the UN. Of Petraeus promotion and the shift of Admiral Fallon to CENTCOM I'm uncertain about. Petraeus is the only field commander whose prestige has increased as a result of his performance in the Iraq war, but it's not 100 percent evident to me why that's the case. He's been saying the right kinds of things about counter-insurgency for a while, but I haven't seen much compelling evidence that his focus has led to notable progress on the ground. That I haven't seen it doesn't mean that the evidence isn't there, though. Fallon has, by all accounts, done a very good job at PACCOM, especially in the diplomatic aspects of the job. No doubt, it is kind of curious to see an Admiral taking over the shop in an area focused on ground combat. More at American Footprints.
--Robert Farley
