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members of the president’s national security team. Obama was alone. Petraeus knew then that Obama had just fired McChrystal without a replacement confirmed, hours before he likely would appear in the Rose Garden and explain his actions to the nation. He and Petraeus sat down together. Obama cut to the chase. “I am asking you, as your president and commander in chief, to take command of the mission in Afghanistan.” Petraeus believed that for anyone in uniform, there is only one answer when a president asks such a question, and he said as much. Then, he responded, “Sir, it would be an honor.” Petraeus could see the burden Obama and the nation faced at that moment. The discussion was sober and frank as they discussed the way ahead in Afghanistan. Obama explicitly told Petraeus to avoid clearing areas that his troops could not hold, and he reviewed the policy that had been announced at West Point the past December, including the plan to begin reducing surge forces in July 2011. Obama described his expectations of a military commander, and Petraeus pledged fealty to the civil-military hierarchy, assuring the president that he would also provide forthright military advice. When the general returned downstairs forty-five minutes later, he said to Howell, “Chief, get my wife on the phone.”
    Howell figured the die had been cast—McChrystal was out, Petraeus was in. Why else would he be calling his wife? But Howell noticed something about his boss. He thought he saw the same spark in Petraeus’s eyes that he’d last seen when he was commanding the war in Iraq. “It’s that undeniable look in sports where the player is in the zone and he says, ‘Give me the ball, I want the ball,’” Howell said. He dialed Holly Petraeus’s number, got her voice mail and handed the phone to the general, who left a simple message:
Watch the news at 1:30 for a presidential announcement—we’ll be in the Rose Garden.
He asked Howell to send her a text message, too, gave him the phone and went inside the Situation Room just before noon.
    Clinton, Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were there, waiting for Petraeus, and the president and Vice President Biden joined them after a few minutes. “This is a bad day; a sorrowful day,” Obama said. Keeping McChrystal in command, he said, would have made it difficult to achieve unity of effort and maintain respect for the military. He acknowledged that replacing him might slow momentum in Afghanistan, though replacing him with Petraeus would mitigate that risk. He wanted no sniping in the press. They needed to be focused, as a team, on the way ahead.
    Obama said he had had long conversations on the subject with Gates and Mullen, and now with General Petraeus. The best way forward, he told the room, was for Petraeus to step in as commander in Afghanistan. He noted that he had already committed additional troops to show that America would not allow al-Qaeda to return to Afghanistan.
We’ll see next July if the strategy is working,
Obama said.
If not, we’ll redesign it. It’s important that we deliver a clear message about what we’re trying to do,
he continued.
We have to acknowledge the real tension that exists between how long we stay and how much it costs.
There were rumors of tension with Petraeus, but Obama noted that he had asked Petraeus to meet with him and share his views candidly.
We’ve agreed to trust each other,
Obama said,
and to share assessments in private.
Vice President Biden added that it was the right decision, and a sad day, to let McChrystal go. But it would be an opportunity to clarify civil-military relations. The president said he would call Afghan president Hamid Karzai, British prime minister David Cameron and the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to let them know of his decision.
    Obama walked out of the Oval Office and into the Rose