"Accustomed to being a demigod, expert at polishing his own celebrity and
swaying public opinion, Petraeus did not accept the new president’s
desire to head for the nearest exit ramp on Afghanistan in 2009. The
general began lobbying for a surge in private sessions with reporters
and undercutting the president, who was trying to make a searingly hard
call.
Petraeus rolled the younger commander in chief into going ahead with a
bound-to-fail surge in Afghanistan, just as, half a century earlier, the
C.I.A. had rolled Jack Kennedy into going ahead with the bound-to-fail
Bay of Pigs scheme. Both missions defied logic, but the untested
presidents put aside their own doubts and instincts, caving to experience."
