From the New York Times: "Comments by Gen. David Petraeus raise the prospect that no U.S. forces will leave Iraq after the last of 30,000 "surge" personnel return home in July, meaning a new president will take office with as many as 140,000 soldiers still in Iraq. An average of about 130,000 soldiers have been there for most of the war."

Can historians recall any field commander ever asking that his force be reduced in number? It's not General Petraeus but the commander-in-chief, President Bush, who owns responsibility for the allocation of troops to different theatres in the war on terror.

That decision is more difficult than in some conflicts because Americans do not face a single enemy either in Iraq or Afghanistan, and must be prepared for engaging with many other potential enemies in still other locations. But in the great struggle of World War II the United States fought multiple opponents around the world, and in the hotter years of the long Cold War similarly the military was engaged in many theatres at the same time.

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