He's the man who oversaw the surge in Iraq. Now he's responsible for both that country and Afghanistan.
General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, came to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday with a warning for senators to expect an increase in violence in Afghanistan once the extra US troops go in there.
"As in Iraq our troopers and their partners in Afghanistan will have to fight their ways into enemy strongholds and clear enemy controlled population centres. As in Iraq, the situation is likely to get harder before it gets easier. Violence likely will increase initially particularly in the spring as the weather improves."
But, in his first Congressional testimony since the Obama troop increase was announced, Petraeus also had an upbeat message for senators despite his grim predication of more violence.
"Nonetheless while certainly difficult, different, and in some ways tougher than Iraq, Afghanistan is no more hopeless than Iraq when I took command there in February 2007. Indeed the number of violence and violent civilian deaths in Iraq were vastly higher than what we have seen in Afghanistan but achieving progress in Afghanistan will be hard and the progress there likely will be slower in developing than was the progress achieved in Iraq."
Some on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee were in no mood to be soft-soaped by Petraeus or the other panellists.
James Risch, a Republican Senator from Idaho, was concerned when Hamid Karzai said he thought it might take another fifteen years to set up the Afghan army.
"To the people of the United States, 15 years is an open-ended commitment. I don't know whose job it is to sit down and look him in the eye and say 'look you're dreaming this is just not going to happen'."
Meanwhile, Benjamin Cardin a Democratic Senator from Maryland wondered about corruption in Afghanistan.
"How do you hold them accountable? What do you do if you find corruption? Do you pull our soldiers out? Do you cut off the money? How do you hold them accountable?"
Jacob Lew, Deputy U.S. Secretary of State replied:
"It's going to be a long term challenge to end corruption in Afghanistan and we have to have realistic expectations."
The man in charge of implementing the new Afghan policy General Stanley McChrystal appeared on the Riz Khan Show on Wednesday and addressed Al Jazeera reports that the Afghan army is far smaller than the US says.
"I believe that what we've got to do is grow that number that's actually in the field operating ... clearly there's a long way to go
RIZ: So it is short, effectively?
"It's certainly short of what's needed and that's why we have coalition forces going into Afghanistan now because we're trying to provide time and space for our partners to grow the capacity that they need."
It was just over a week ago that President Obama addressed the country and laid out his new Afghan strategy. Since then the American public has been learning more about the plan.
There are more hearings on Capitol Hill to come this week.
Obama's challenge remains the same as it did last week - not so much convincing his political opponents but winning over the public and sceptical members of his own party.
![[QODLink]](http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images/2012/2/16/201221612556570580_16.jpg "In the Arab world, the West's interests trump its values")
