President Petraeus?

A good piece in today's New York Times about what's happened to Gen. David Petraeus, who heads up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but whose influence may have been lacking since the change in U.S. administrations last Jan. 20.

The piece, by Elisabeth Bumiller, notes that Petraeus was a "favorite" of George W. Bush, but may not have the same clout with President Obama.

The general's closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama's White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat.

No longer does the man who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have one of the biggest voices at National Security Council meetings, as he did when Mr. Bush gave him 20 minutes during hourlong weekly sessions to present his views in live video feeds from Baghdad. No longer is the general, with the Capitol Hill contacts and web of e-mail relationships throughout Washington's journalism establishment, testifying in media explosions before Congress, as he did in September 2007, when he gave 34 interviews in three days.

Petraeus' star may have dimmed a bit with this White House, and perhaps Obama has turned more to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who is running the Afghanistan theater. But one wonders about McChrystal's influence too, in light of his clear outspoken view that more troops should be sent to the region — a policy that may not jibe with the administration. (His public comments on troop strength sure seemed to get a bit of a slap down from National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones over the weekend.) Perhaps that's why Petraeus has been somewhat quiet as of late about the best way of fighting the Taliban.

But war strategy aside, this was the bombshell in Bumiller's piece:

 

The change [in Petraeus' position] has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration's debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

General Petraeus's aides now privately call him "Dave the Dull," and say he has largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general's ambitions in particular. ...

"General Petraeus has not hinted to anyone that he is interested in political life, and in fact has said on many occasions that he's not," said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and professor of military history at Ohio State University who was the executive officer to General Petraeus when he was the top American commander in Iraq.

"It is other people who are looking at his popularity and saying that he would be a good presidential candidate, and I think rightly that makes the administration a little suspicious of him."

This has not been the first time I've seen speculation about Petraeus as a potential presidential candidate. About a month ago, Politico reported that former Sen. Bob Dole suggested the four-star general should run "as a latter-day Ike":

Well, I'd like to see Gen. Petraeus warm up. I don't know anything about his politics, whether he has an interest. It's kind of a time for another Eisenhower, in my view.

But if the Afghanistan war goes sour, and if the public feels that it's because the Obama administration strategy was incorrect, there might very well be more calls for a Petraeus candidacy.

Lot of "ifs" in that sentence.