WASHINGTON — Pinned down in Kandahar, Presi dent Obama faced a small handful of unpleasant options and dwindling ammunition.
Every bad option was sure to invite enemy fire and cause painful casualties.
There was no way to escape unharmed.
Worst of all, his most reliable and oft-used weapons — soaring oratory and happy talk — were rendered absolutely mute in this case due to the seriousness of the situation and the very hard, real consequences at stake.
So the commander-in-chief chose his course, swallowed hard and pushed through.
And it will be remembered as a sterling moment in his otherwise surprisingly gloomy presidency.
The easy course would have been to let Gen. Stanley McChrystal twist in the wind a little more and get pounded from all quarters. Obama would dress him down face to face.
But in the end, Obama would magnanimously step to the microphones and say the effort in Afghanistan is bigger than hurt feelings and we must push on with the man with the plan.
“We’re cool,” he would say.
That is how this president likes to handle problems. Talk them out and ignore the hard edges.
But in war, hard edges are where our boys live or die.
Sacking McChrystal was by far the hardest route.
Some critics had already begun lining up behind the loose-lipped general and are sure to pound Obama for letting bruised egos trump victory in the Afghanistan war effort.
Also, getting rid of the general solves one problem while creating another — even bigger — problem.
Who do you find to replace McChrystal, the very author of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan?
Especially at a time when you are trying to begin receding from the craggy mountains of the seemingly hopeless land?
Tapping Gen. David Petraeus was an inspired choice and was no small request.
Obama basically asked one of the country’s most decorated and celebrated warriors to jump on a grenade after already having given so much in that theater.
A request like that is another one of those hard choices that only commanders are capable of making.
All this leads to the biggest reason why dumping McChrystal at this point was such a bad option for Obama, a man who owes his presidency to his anti-war credentials.
By firing his point man in Afghanistan and replacing him with someone as heralded as Petraeus, Obama has effectively doubled down on Afghanistan and become that much more invested in success there.
He is now more committed than ever to winning a very, very hard war at a tough time to be fighting — when even the most patriotic of souls are growing weary of the whole enterprise. It is not pretty.
It is not easy. It will not make anybody swoon.
But it is what commanders do who see only the flags of victory in the far distance.