A friend alerts us to a fascinating piece from the Wall Street Journal entitled "Our Generals Almost Cost Us Iraq" by Mackuber Thomas Owens, the editor of Orbis. Owens points out that

even when it comes to strictly military affairs, soldiers are not necessarily more prescient than civilian policy makers.

and that this seems to have been especially the case during the Iraq war, when commanders like GEN Casey, GEN Abizaid, and worst of all, ADM Fallon sought to undermine the Surge -- presuming of course that the accounts in Bob Woodward's "The War Within" are true (always a big if). Owen concludes

not since Gen. McClellan attempted to sabotage Lincoln's war policy in 1862 has the leadership of the U.S. military so blatantly attempted to undermine a president in the pursuit of his constitutional authority