How Rolling Stone toppled General McChrystal

The effect of the latest edition of Rolling Stone magazine on the career of General Stanley McChrystal has been swift and drastic. His Commander-in-Chief removed him unceremoniously from his role as leader of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Rolling Stone feature wasn't a scoop in the traditional sense of the revealing of secrets: its revelations were of opinion and attitude, recorded by a journalist who was there with permission. But its consequence is a supreme example of red-blooded journalismo. Rolling Stone has claimed a huge scalp. Nobody will ever kick sand in the face of its reporters.

Readers of the piece, by the war correspondent Michael Hastings, might not have initially realised what a powerful punch it packed. Hastings reveals that McChrystal's favourite beer is Bud Light Lime, and his favourite film is Tallageda Nights.

The feature was based, Hastings says, on his spending a month "around the general". There is no mention of the terms on which he was allowed access. 

Hastings had "several lengthy interviews" with McChrystal, but there are surprisingly few quotes from him. What must have raised blood pressure in Washington were paragraphs like the following, about Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan:

At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. "Oh, not another email from Holbrooke," he groans. "I don't even want to open it." He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.

"Make sure you don't get any of that on your leg," an aide jokes, referring to the email.

But the idea that Rolling Stone followed McChrystal around and that his off-guard comments got him sacked is simplistic.

First, it is members of the general's inner circle, whom Hastings characterises as "a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs", who supply the killer quotes, rather than the general himself. 

And the quotes are mostly unattributed, except to "an adviser to McChrystal", "sources familiar with the meeting", "one aide ... another aide", "a member of the general's team", "a senior adviser to McChrystal".

At the end of a boozy night in Paris, McChrystal tells Hastings his team would die for him, as he would for them, a thought that acquires a new irony if it was their comments that led to his downfall.

But the most disturbing reading for members of the Obama administration may have been the contradictions Hastings exposes in McChrystal's expensive and ambitious strategy of counter-insurgency - the attempt to fight the Taliban by winning over the Afghan population.

While McChrystal's gung-ho, rule-bending style has been much reported, his soldiers say his hardline policies to minimise civilian casualties - because of their impact on local public opinion - are making their jobs impossible. Here the piece persuasively stacks up testimony against McChrystal:

"Bottom line?" says a former Special Forces operator who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan. "I would love to kick McChrystal in the nuts. His rules of engagement put soldiers' lives in even greater danger. Every real soldier will tell you the same thing."

Hastings attends a meeting with front-line troops who tell their commander how he is hampering their ability to root out the enemy:

The session ends with no clapping, and no real resolution. McChrystal may have sold President Obama on counterinsurgency, but many of his own men aren't buying it.

And the following bleak vision of the end of US involvement in Afghanistan must surely have been greeted with an 'ouch!' in the Pentagon:

"It's not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win," says Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, who serves as chief of operations for McChrystal.

Hastings paints a picture of a commander torn between the demands of his own forces, his NATO allies, the Afghan government, the local population and his political masters in Washington. It's a thoughtful, thorough essay, setting out in detail a huge foreign policy problem.

So why exactly did McChrystal have to go? 

The President said "the conduct represented in the recently published article ... undermines the civilian control of the military that's at the core of our democratic system".

But how exactly? The President ruled out the two most obvious reasons for his action: "I don't make this decision based on any difference in policy with General McChrystal ... nor do I make this decision out of any sense of personal insult."

The idea of personal conflict in the corridors of power is easy. Perhaps there was a more complicated reason for McChrystal's fall. 

When the first political memoirs of the Obama administration are published, we will find out at what level Hastings' piece really hit home, or whether it was just the catalyst for a process that was already under way.