The announcement came this afternoon: one day after being summoned back to the US to answer for an explosive article in Rolling Stone, General Stanley McChrystal has been relieved of his command in Afghanistan. Instead, General David Petraeus will step in to take his place.  But will anything fundamentally change in US policy in the region?

Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch has a new book out, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, and he joins us in studio to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, what's likely to happen post-McChrystal, and whether getting out entirely is a viable option.

(Note: At the time of this taping, it had not officially been announced that McChrystal was being relieved of his post.)