New general badged a good guy

US Lieutenant General David Petraeus.
Photograph: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/GettyThe expected appointment of Lieutenant General David Petraeus gets a thumbs-up from bloggers, who note his success in northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion.

"Petraeus is among the real experts on counter-insurgency, and did a fine job of making friends and mending fences when he was in charge of Mosul," writes Juan Cole on his Informed Comment blog.

Cole also thinks highly of Ryan Crocker, who will become the new US ambassador to Iraq, replacing Zalmay Khalilzad, who goes to the UN to replace John Bolton.

"Despite all the talk of the resurgence of the neoconservatives with their 'surge' (actually ramped up occupation) plan, this team is the farthest from neoconservative desires that you could possibly get," he argues.