my opinion of the man, is that he's a bit of all of the above (excepting the warmonger bit);
it's an interesting opinion in the article, but I think the point is better made, not that Petreus is a "phony hero," but that it was really a phony war.
I'm not sure Alexander the Great,
or Serpentor himself,
could really wrest"victory" out of the cluster-fuck our Iraq "strategy" was going in.

agreed. Something had to be done. I'm still not sold that a military response was the appropriate one, but . . . given the realities of the situation, it was probably the most viable (speaking of Afghanistan, of course.)
Still, Afghanistan, Iraq, wherever, if the lessons of the colonial powers didn't teach us that internal change cannot be enforced via external pressure/force; our own experience as humans should have.
I'm not saying that military force has no legitimate role to play, it's vital and necessary to defend against other military threats, but . . . to my way of thinking, "terrorism" is defined, primarily, by the lack of an organized military structure. There is no state, no governing body, no civilian population to safeguard, no territory to take and hold, and no truce to be brokered.
Again, I'm not saying the fight doesn't need to be fought, but perhaps, the Intelligence agencies and traditional international law enforcement is better equipped to win this war, than conventional military forces.
*sigh* indeed, and in any event