# David Petraeus David Petraeus (born 1952) is a retired four-star general who became the public face of the 2007 [[Iraq Surge]] and the counterinsurgency doctrine ("COIN") sold as the strategy that pulled Iraq back from the brink. ## The Surge and After Tapped to command in Iraq in 2007, Petraeus oversaw the troop escalation and the "Anbar Awakening" alliance with Sunni tribes, which sharply reduced violence — though critics note the surge tamped down a civil war the occupation had itself ignited, and that the gains proved temporary once [[Islamic State]] emerged. He later led CENTCOM, ran the Afghanistan war, and served briefly as director of the [[CIA]] before resigning in 2012 over an affair that involved sharing classified material — a light-touch outcome the vault tracks as a data point in [[Elite Impunity]]. *See also: [[Iraqi History Hub]], [[Iraq Surge]], [[Iraq War]], [[Islamic State]]*