Who Will Save Obama's Backside on Afghanistan? David Petraeus?

Did you hear about Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren's breasts? I'll get to that in a moment. First, Afghanistan.

The war was there in the news cycle -- for what seemed a few nanoseconds on Monday -- after The Washington Post published an unclassified version of the assessment of the war submitted to the Pentagon by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces there. As I've noted elsewhere, though McChrystal claims victory remains possible in Afghanistan -- if a new strategy is adopted, additional troops and civilian resources are deployed, and the Afghan government and military can be made operational -- his review is rather bleak. It shows how the spending of more than $400 billion and the sacrifice of over 800 U.S. service members have brought the United States little in this war. (Thank you, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.) To his credit, McChrystal is candid about the challenges faced in Afghanistan. His task, however, is to come up with a plan for success -- even if the odds are long and even as he depicts the mission as profoundly daunting. Consequently, McChrystal is teeing up a big dilemma for the commander in chief.

The general has essentially asked for a significant number of additional troops and civilian personnel for non-military tasks. There's yet no formal request. But can President Barack Obama now decline to dispatch more troops to Afghanistan? If he does, you know how the right-wing hawks and neocons will respond: Obama's selling out our troops, shortchanging the men and women in the field, guaranteeing failure, giving al-Qaeda and the Taliban a win. A fair reading of McChrystal's report is that any further investment could easily end up going down a sinkhole. Bad money after good -- and also lives. Yet Obama will have a hot political fight if he says no to a field commander who's just doing his job.

Who can rescue Obama from this tough call? Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. Central Command, with perhaps an assist from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They have presumably read the McChrystal report and can see the full dimensions of the slog at hand. Do any of these three military men want to see the United States bogged down in Afghanistan (a.k.a. the graveyard of empires) and the U.S. military stretched and torn by what could be a never-ending war? (It's already gone on longer than the length of U.S. involvement in both World Wars.)

Before any request for more troops reaches the Oval Office, it will first have to first pass the desks of these three, and they each have institutional imperatives that extend beyond Afghanistan. Unlike McChrystal, they have to consider the impact of throwing more resources into Afghanistan upon the overall force structure and strategy of the U.S. military. And of this trio, Petraeus is the guy with the strongest political standing. Were he to make it known that he has questions about McChrystal's call for more troops, that would provide Obama much coverage for saying no or okaying only a modest boost.

Dire predictions come cheap and easy. But Obama's presidency could be sucked into a black hole in Afghanistan. He is approaching a decision point -- maybe some time in the next few weeks or months. He does appear reluctant to throttle up in Afghanistan. But he certainly doesn't want to be in a position where he can be assailed for undermining the very commander he placed in charge of the war effort. He needs Petraeus, Mullen and Gates to block for him.

Oh yeah, I mentioned something about breasts. As Melinda Henneberger and I both recently noted, there's a new book out on Bill Clinton, based on taped conversations he had throughout his presidency with Taylor Branch, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and FOB. The book is loaded with intriguing passages about the Clinton years -- especially the relationship between Clinton and Al Gore. We each got an advance copy and wrote about some of the juicy stuff -- like a spat between Hillary Clinton and Sally Quinn because the latter spread the rumor the first lady was trysting with a female veterinarian in a White House bedroom. (For my column, click here.) But as I've continued to read the 707-page tome, I've come across more tidbits of interest -- including this one:

During an interview with Branch in January 2000, Clinton mentioned that he had recently attended a black-tie dinner and was seated between actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren. Branch writes, Clinton "quoted Taylor's first words in response to his standard hello. 'Have you looked at her tits yet?" she asked. Startled, he said no. She gave him a withering look of disbelief, probably from her Cleopatra role, until Clinton admitted that he had noticed Loren's low-cut dress previously this evening. 'That's better,' said Taylor." Busted.

You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter.