Mike Barnicle. David Petraeus

What if someone gave a war & Nobody came? Life would ring the bells of Ecstasy and Forever be Itself again. -- from"Graffiti," poem by Allen Ginsberg [1972].

Maybe so.  But what of the converse? What if someone sued for peace but the enemy didn't go along?  That was the gist of General David Petraeus's observation today on the Obama withdrawal plan. Petraeus made his comments in the course of an interview with Andrea Mitchell, in Baghdad. A clip of the interview was aired on this evening's Hardball, with Mike Barnicle sitting in for Chris Matthews.

MIKE BARNICLE: Andrea, earlier today, you had an interview with General David Petraeus, and I'd like to play a clip of it when you asked General Petraeus about Obama's 16-month plan, and here was his response to you.

DAVID PETRAEUS: It depends on the conditions; depends on the mission set.  It depends on the enemy.  The enemy does get a vote and is sometimes an independent variable.  Lots of different factors, I think, that would be tied up in that and the dialogue on that, and the amount of risk.  Because it eventually comes down to how much risk various options entail.  That's the kind of discussion I think that is very important as we do look to the future.

View video here.