Soft-spoken and intense, the top US soldier in Afghanistan successfully lobbied the President for a surge in troops. Now all he has to do is salvage a faltering war,? commented Time magazine as it picked Gen Stanley McChrystal as the runner-up of the ?Person of the Year 2009?. Speaking softly is not a virtue the general has at all times, and that may be the one point almost anybody can agree by now: you only have to read his disparaging remarks about his senior civilian colleagues in the Obama administration in a profile (by dire portent, titled ?The Runaway General?) in Rolling Stone magazine . Intense he is, of course, but to a fault, as it seemed like when he made some inflammatory comments, especially about Vice President Joseph Biden and special envoy on AfPak Richard Holbrooke. What is striking is that Gen McChrystal committed a cardinal sin that goes against the grain of military discipline: he just showed his pent-up emotions on a burning government policy to a journalist. That was completely unexpected from a man known for his penchant to take only calculated risks.

So much for the team of rivals President Obama once talked about.

?I welcome debate, but I won?t tolerate division,? the President finally spoke last Wednesday. And, little over a year after he assumed charge as commander of multinational forces in Afghanistan, Gen McChrystal?s star has fallen, and fallen very fast indeed. He will be replaced by Gen David Petraeus, the ?miracle worker? of Iraq. While announcing the decision, President Obama insisted it was ?a change in personnel but not a change in policy?.

The President may wish, but it doesn?t appear exactly that way so far. Within his administration, the festering row over the deadline is taking up much time, and a deeper disconnect over the strategy to adopt to stem the Taliban momentum in Afghanistan is quickly eroding public confidence among the American public. The President is obviously more worried about the second thing, but it?s the first that?s doing the greatest immediate damage away from the battlefield.

Putting aside the irony of the man who probably has done more to firm up a competitive vision to reverse the stumbling war effort in Afghanistan than anyone else, the question naturally arises as to why Gen McChrystal had to go on public with his candid take on some of the colleagues he closely works with. Certainly, the AfPak counterinsurgency mission is one of the most complex and consequential initiatives that the US has ever undertaken, over which even the most serious-minded people of goodwill are bound to have real differences. The stakes are getting higher and higher in what is now increasingly being called ?Obama?s war?, and the discussion ought to reflect that.

But then, something has shifted since President Obama set a deadline to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan?from July 2011?in the very address at West Point on December 1 last as he announced the sending of extra troops to Afghanistan. Ever since, the team of rivals in the administration and military side has started unravelling into dysfunction. The indiscretion on the part of Gen McChrystal in the Rolling Stone article is symptomatic of the faultline and unpala- table choices the administration has to contend with.

It was no secret, even earlier, that the administration?s report card in Afghanistan has been smeared by the continuing differences between civilian officials and military commanders that started with the broad review of strategy last year. One of the two civilian officials Gen McChrystal is quoted as rubbishing, Karl W Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, opposed the counterinsurgency plan and had crossed swords with Gen McChrystal over tactics. Topping the list of unpleasant options the administration faces is the Afghanistan regime led by President Hamid Karzai. The Kabul government remains so plagued by corruption and inefficiency that it has limited legitimacy with the Afghan public. Yet, there is little recourse for the US.

The mess has started to grow more chaotic two weeks ago when Gen Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that?an appearance that made headlines for the tough-minded general fainting amid sharp questioning from Senators?the conduct of the counterinsurgency operation has been a roller-coaster experience. Gen Petraeus made the case that, six months after President Obama launched a new strategy, the ?trajectory… has generally been upward?. The response that his comments evoked among the lawmakers was evident: they were clearly discomfited by the facts, including the rapid erosion of initial gains in southern Afghanistan and what seems to be a sharp mistrust between the administration and President Karzai.

Yet, the key sticking point is the date to start the drawdown of troops, and this is what seems to be holding up the next?and the most crucial?stage of the US/Nato military campaign that began with Operation Moshtarak in Helmand. That is the battle for Kandahar. Petraeus told Senate committe that he would recommend postponing the start of the withdrawal if security conditions and the capability of the Afghan government could not support it. That does not mean Petraeus is opposed to bringing some troops home, and he said repeatedly that he supports Obama?s strategy. His caution, however, is rooted in the fact that the uniformed military?and counterinsurgency specialists, in particular? have always been uneasy with fixed parameters and timelines.

In the Rolling Stone profile that was alternately triumphant, humorous, confrontational and bizarre, Gen McChrystal and his aides repeatedly gloated over the purported failure of the administration attempts to undermine his authority and the inability of his colleagues to muster more reason to the debate over strategy. Even if that caused the general?s undoing, logic dictates that the Obama administration should neither let the strategy riven by hypocrisy nor commit the folly to embark on an appeasing mode in the AfPak theatre. The July 2011 timeline set by President Obama to start the drawdown of troops ought not be a cut and run.

The ?carrot and stick? approach is not a novel foreign policy strategy, especially when you deal with dicey partners like Pakistan.

?rajiv.jayaram@expressindia.com