All this talk about how Secretary Rumsfeld and the political leadership in Washington committed the faux pas of second-guessing the uniformed generals in the lead-up to the war with Iraq sent us back to the history books. Supposedly our generals wanted to wait before launching the war and argued that they would need more troops before going into Iraq. It wouldn’t be the first time this kind of thing has happened.

The most famous case was that of Major General George Brinton McClellan, commander of the Union forces soon after the onset of the Civil War. He brilliantly built a rag-tag force of disorganized state regiments into what became the Army of the Potomac. McClellan had a reputation as a master organizer and a competent strategist by the standards of West Point, and he was well regarded by his men.

In 1862, in an attempt to quell the Confederate rebellion quickly, McClellan launched an invasion of Richmond from the south and east. The aim was to avoid a costly overland march from the north. Capturing Richmond, he seems to have thought, would have ended the Confederacy. In the Peninsula Campaign, McClellan had a distinct advantage in numbers and materiel. But the hapless general proved unable to take Richmond. He was constantly griping to Washington about how he needed more men and more materiel. He believed that President Lincoln was against him and that the political leadership was more interested in a quick victory than the realities of facing the Confederate outposts along the Virginia Peninsula.

Among the more famous of these Confederate outposts were those of Major General John Bankhead Magruder, who was able to outfox the cautious McClellan by marching his troops back and forth along the fortifications. McClellan, who had a habit of overestimating the size and strength of his opponent, believed Magruder’s force to be much larger than it was. So he waited, and asked Lincoln for more and more troops. Having waited long enough for the Confederates to reinforce Richmond, McClellan was forced to abandon the Peninsula Campaign, and the war dragged on.

Once again, McClellan had a chance to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia when he pushed the Union Army into Maryland in 1862. At Antietam, McClellan again had a distinct numerical advantage, which he squandered by sending his troops piecemeal to meet General Lee’s forces, always weary of overextending. He failed to deliver what would have been a devastating loss for the Confederacy. For this, Lincoln sent McClellan home to New Jersey. “You may find those who will go faster than I, Mr. President; but it is very doubtful if you will find many who will go further,” McClellan wrote to Lincoln. And Lincoln did just that — soon finding in U.S. Grant a man who would suspend caution when it was time for risk-taking.

It is the most famous case in our own history, but a similar fate befell Field Marshall Claude Auchinleck of the British Army. Auchinleck, as commander of the British forces in North Africa, was the victim of Rommel’s campaign in 1941. With a distinct numerical advantage, but fearful of overextending his supply line and running out of fuel, Auchinleck sat in Egypt while Rommel re-conquered much of North Africa. The old cigar-chomper, Winston Churchill, personally made a trip to Cairo to find the problem — another master organizer and bureaucrat, incapable of taking the initiative to the enemy. Churchill fired Auchinleck then and there, and the man who came to command the British forces in Northern Africa was named Harold Alexander. Alexander’s tactical commander, leader of the Desert Rats, was one Bernard Montgomery.

We mention all this not simply to discount entirely the debate that is underway in the Pentagon. Nor to gainsay the heroism of the uniformed services, who have covered themselves with glory throughout American history. But the political leadership of America does not work for the generals. It is the other way around. Tanks are supposed to run out of fuel (remember that great scene in the movie “Patton”). Our history tells us that for all the heroism of the military there has been plenty of heroic military leadership from the elected civilian commander in chief and his secretaries of war. If it turns out that there have been some differences of opinion between the civilian leadership and the military subordinates, it does not necessarily follow that the generals were right.