What did I mean when I said the counterinsurgents were going to be pleased by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s ascension to top U.S. general in Afghanistan? Here’s a quick take from a senior military officer who served with McChrystal in Iraq. The officer asked to remain anonymous.

LTG McChrystal will bring a very unique perspective to the command and the fight that they may not have been seeing as yet. His in-depth experiences and knowledge on how to work in the special operations community, the conventional forces and with host nation/foreign troops should provide huge dividends to not only the command, but the mission and hopefully the NATO element as well.

Besides the intelligence analysts, he may understand the AQ [al-Qaeda] and Taliban threat more than any other single operator in the Army or DoD. He is unflappable and what I have heard people describe as ’scary smart’ so coupled with the challenges of working the Afghanistan political part, military operations, working with our own political landscape and that of CENTCOM, I am sure he will be what is needed.

Crossposted to The Streak.