One of the defining features of Gen. David Petraeus' tenure as leader of US forces in Iraq is an unusually close partnership with his political counterpart here, Ambassador Ryan Crocker. With that connection about to be broken, the question arises: Will it matter at this calmer but still fragile stage of the war? Petraeus, widely credited as chief orchestrator of a generally successful counterinsurgency strategy, is due to depart in September. Crocker, among the State Department's most experienced Middle East hands, says he will stay until President Bush leaves the White House in January, then retire. In an Associated Press interview, Petraeus said he and Crocker saw "inescapable merit" in a political-military synergy. So when they arrived in Baghdad in early 2007, with sectarian violence still raging, they wrote and then executed a classified "joint campaign plan" for countering the insurgency.