The first since Omar Bradley? So argues D.B. Grady over at The Atlantic:

It’s up to David Petraeus now. One can argue the merits and the import of a civilian-led military (and find no disagreement here). But if General Petraeus had collapsed during that Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month and not gotten back up, the war would be over.
When he ascended to command in Iraq, with a name torn from ancient Rome and a plan pulled from the spirit of Frederick the Great (misattributed, “L’audace, l’audace, toujours l’audace!”), he brought order to chaos. Not just on the battlefield, but in living rooms, around water coolers, and on military bases the world over. David Petraeus, with his Ph.D from Princeton and a Ranger tab on his shoulder, assuaged fears that the combat zone was a partisan playground and the United States still shackled to Vietnam. Here was a man who’d taken a bullet, been awarded Valor medals, and doesn’t vote so as not to get dragged into the undertow of Washington politics.

I think Grady overstates the importance of Petraeus the man (as opposed to Petraeus’s ideas, which have taken root in the military community). But then, the general has been tasked with turning the tide in another un-winnable war just a couple of years after he pulled a rabbit out of his hat in Iraq. If any one of our commanders deserves a fifth star, it’s Petraeus.