Readers here might wonder why, up until now, I have posted nothing on the Petraeus affair. After all, it’s the story now gripping Washington.

The sudden departure of the director of the CIA in such ignominious circumstances marks not only the apparent end of a much celebrated career but likewise the end of speculation that Petraeus might be a latter-day Eisenhower and a future president.

In many ways the story appears utterly mundane. A middle-aged man succumbs to the irresistible attraction of a younger woman who apparently had an insatiable appetite for listening to the general talk about himself. Vanity heralds foolishness.

But there’s another story much more compelling yet which most likely will never be told. In the same week that Petraeus tendered his resignation and President Obama took 24 hours to respond, both men were involved in a decision of much greater magnitude: the issuing of orders to kill three Al Qaeda suspects. In a drone attack just outside the capital of Yemen on Wednesday morning, Adnan al-Qadhi, Rabeaa Lahib and Radwan al-Hashdhi were killed and others were injured including a boy.

It seems reasonable to assume that President Obama’s decision to authorize a drone strike in Yemen this week weighed much less heavily on his mind than the departure of the CIA chief. The incineration of Adnan al-Qadhi and his associates was simply of less consequence than the relationship between General Petraeus and Paula Broadwell.

Washington becomes ever more like The Sopranos, where casual killings provoke less anguish than fraught family relations.

The Washington Post reports:

Petraeus, who retired from the military last year, is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which classifies adultery as a crime.

Practically speaking, however, the odds are extremely low that the military would prosecute a retired officer for having an affair, said Eugene R. Fidell, a prominent military law expert who teaches at Yale University.

“They’re as close to zero as you can get,” Fidell said. “It would have to be a grave matter before the executive branch would prosecute a retiree.”

Petraeus married Holly two months after graduating from West Point. His courtship was seen as audacious because of her father’s rank at the elite military academy. They have two children, Stephen, who became an Army officer, and Anne.

Petraeus has frequently praised his wife in public appearances for her sacrifices and contributions to his career, and he characterized his return to Washington as an opportunity for them to be closer after his years-long assignments overseas.

President Bashar al-Assad: 'The problem is that those terrorists are fighting from within the cities, and in the cities you have civilians. When you fight this kind of terrorists, you have to be aware that you should do the minimum damage to the infrastructure and minimum damage to the civilians because you have civilians and you have to fight, you cannot leave terrorists just killing and destroying. So, this is the difficulty in this kind of war. ' Photo: Homs, October 7, 2012

This is part of George Bush’s legacy: Bashar al-Assad’s war on terrorism.

“Terrorism” has become the glue that binds together global leaders of almost every political persuasion.

There is no civil war in Syria, no revolution or armed uprising — there are simply “terrorists” foreign and domestic who are serving as proxies for the powers the have ganged up against and demonized the Syrian president, a modest man who only holds power because this is the will of the people.

There might not be too many journalists willing to go along with this narrative, but Russia Today not only provided an interviewer willing to echo Assad’s claim that his enemy is terrorism — Sophie Shevardnadze wanted to know: “how much time do you need to crush the enemy?”

Suppose Iranian drones were spotted flying in international airspace close to New York City and U.S. air force jets were sent to intercept them. Would the drones simply be kept under surveillance so long as they remained outside U.S. territory? Or might warning shots be fired? Or might they simply be shot down?

Whichever of those outcomes transpired, no one would be in any doubt about who was being confrontational: the Iranians. And if shots were fired by Americans, their action would be described defensive.

Similarly, when U.S. drones operate just a few miles outside Iranian air space, it’s clear who is being confrontational — at least it’s clear unless you happen to be a reporter covering the Pentagon.

After two Iranian Su-25 fighter jets “fired on” an unmanned U.S. Air Force Predator drone in the Persian Gulf last week, U.S. military intelligence analysts were unsure whether the Iranian pilots missed their target or were simply firing warning shots.

CNN’s Barbara Starr, who treats the word of Pentagon officials as gospel, wrote: “But as one of the officials said, ‘it doesn’t matter, they fired on us.'”

Since the claim was that of an official, not the observation of the reporter herself, she should have described the official’s assertion as that: a claim that it makes no difference what the Iranian’s intended.

But since it’s neither the job of Pentagon spokesmen nor reporters to attempt to read the minds of Iranian pilots, then it’s better to stick with the facts.

U.S. drones were operating just outside Iranian air space and Iranian jets fired shots. The purpose of the shooting is unknown but we do know that the CIA has previously operated a fleet of surveillance drones inside Iran and famously lost one.

The New York Times reports:

The shooting, which the Pentagon said occurred Nov. 1 — five days before the American presidential election — was the first known instance of Iranian warplanes firing on an American surveillance drone.

George Little, the top Pentagon spokesman, attributed the weeklong silence on the incident to restrictions on discussing classified surveillance missions. But it doubtless will raise questions about whether that silence had been meant to forestall an international controversy before the election. Had a decision been made to officially disclose the shooting, it might have been viewed as a provocative or even partisan political act before the voting.

What none of the Pentagon reporters are willing to consider is that the operation of the drone was itself an act of provocation and that if the Iranians merely fired warning shots this indicated that they were not eager to rise to the bait.

The idea that the U.S. or Israel might actively attempt to trigger a war with Iran is not simply an obsession of those observers who persistently warn about “false flag” operations. It was one of the U.S. navy’s own top political advisers who in 2007 warned that Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff appeared to be intent on engineering a Tonkin Gulf type incident by sailing “three ‘big decks,’ as aircraft carriers are known, through the Strait of Hormuz — to put a virtual armada, unannounced, on Iran’s doorstep. No advance notice, even to Saudi Arabia and other gulf allies.”

It may indeed not matter whether the Iranians were firing warning shots or trying to bring down the unmanned aircraft; what matters more is why a drone was being flown in such a sensitive location right before the election.