WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama today ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, choosing the general's direct boss — Gen. David Petraeus — to take over the troubled 9-year-old war.

McChrystal was summoned to Washington from Kabul to explain scathing, mocking remarks about administration officials, including Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, by him and his team in a magazine article. But the morning showdown with Obama in the Oval Office was not enough to save his job.

McChrystal offered his resignation and Obama accepted it.

Petraeus, who attended a formal Afghanistan war meeting today at the White House, now oversees the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq as head of U.S. Central Command.

By pairing the decision on McChrystal's departure with the name of his replacement, Obama is seeking to move on as quickly as possible from the firestorm surrounding the Rolling Stone magazine story and the renewed debate over his Afghanistan policy that it provoked.

Petraeus is the nation's best-known military man, having risen to prominence as the commander who turned around the Iraq war in 2007. The Afghanistan job is actually a step down from his current post.