Why Obama should keep McChrystal on as Commander of the War In Afghanistan

Since the Rolling Stone article profiling General McChrystal came out, many Washington pundits have been calling for President Obama to fire him for insubordination. Throughout the profile, McChrystal's quotes have shown a man who expressed all too willingly that he felt he lacked support from top administration officials who disagreed with him about the Counter Insurgency strategy (also known as COIN) and the corresponding surge in Afghanistan. Now the ill-timed comments threaten to weaken his status as Commander-In-Chief, and more importantly, weaken the unified resolve to see the mission through.

McChrystal openly mocked officials such as Vice President "Bite Me" Biden and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke for advocating a purer counter-terrorism strategy with more drones and a lighter military footprint.

This is not good.  We have civilian leadership of the Armed Forces for a reason.  Sometimes in the midst of battle the good general thinks that the battle in front of him can always be won whereas the President must ask the question of whether the battle was worth fighting at all.

This flap is surely going to cause hurt feelings between the President and the General and many other Presidents such as President Truman could and did fire their generals for open disagreement.  I would not blame President Obama if he fired General McChrystal, but I think it is the wrong move.  After the lengthy review on Afghanistan's conflict, the President determined that it was a conflict worth fighting and that Counter Insurgency of "Clear, Build, and Hold" with extremely restrictive rules of engagement was the way forward.  General Stanley McChrystal literally wrote the manual.

Here's a chance for President Obama to illustrate that he's a different kind of President, that hurt feelings won't get in the way of seeing the strategy through.  The strategy might still fail, but at least we tried.  And in this era of foreign policy where the opaque goal is to not get 17 year old men with little to no employment prospects mad at you, unfortunately trying is all you can ask.