Patrick Cockburn: Putting Petraeus in Perspective

"His great achievement in Iraq was to persuade Americans that they had won the war when, in fact, they were withdrawing with little achieved. He was able to sell the "surge" as a triumph of military tactics when in reality its most important feature was that Sunni insurgents allied themselves with American forces because they were being slaughtered by the Shia."

http://www.counterpunch.com/patrick06252010.html