Bob Woodward, a perennial Washington insider, provides a fast paced account of president Barack Hussein Obama’s early days in office. The newly elect president has inherited two of America’s longest wars and Woodward, of watergate fame, projects his gravitas on the most surreal deliberations from the “Situation room” between Obama and his top military advisors. The description of events leading up to the appointment of key cabinet posts in the Obama administration, with honourable mention to the newly elect-president’s pursuit of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, reads from an Aaron Sorkin script. Woodward demonstrates his grasp of everything Washington and the inner workings of the White House with short quip jabs amongst Obama’s campaign staff, all jostling for power in the administration, interluding it with the serious policy debate happening in the Oval office.
Barack Obama has some decisions to make and Woodward begins at the very beginning: its 2008 and president-elect Obama fresh of his victory speeches receives his first Intelligence briefing by the director of national intelligence Mitch McConnell. The “forgotten war” in Afghanistan and the “raging war” in Iraq are at the top of this agenda. Here in the same meeting, Woodward (enjoying complete impunity) reveals Obama receiving his top secret code words for the Predator drone operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan “SYLVAN-MAGNOLIA”, thus setting the reader up for more.
While the prospect of “bringing the troops back” seems alluring for a president who did not vote for the Iraq war, and in-fact won his presidency over this very issue, the reality of doing so sets in rather quickly as Barack Obama prepares to take office at a most circumspect time in recent memory. The looming 2008 financial crises ensures that Obama remains preoccupied domestically, taking total heed from the Pentagon in devising his military strategy. This is perhaps more a failing on Woodward’s part than Obama’s, for seemingly projecting the actors at the top brass of US Army, Navy, the Marines, CIA and Special Ops as heroes from a western, who can do no wrong. Some of these characters, namely: General David H. Petreaus , Admiral Mike Mullen, General Stanley McChrystal regularly feature in Obama’s Situation room briefings and are invariably stoic about their assessment of the situation in the war theatres. The situation is always grim and would remain so unless more resources weren’t pooled in. The mantra of the generals asking for more translates into Vice President Joe Biden and the state department led by Hillary Clinton getting into gear and touring the world, asking the already fatigued NATO allies to do more.
Interestingly, Woodward finds discussing the origins of the long war in Afghanistan (9/11) and the Iraq war (WMDs), an exercise in futility. It makes sense, as it has the potential of blowing the steam out of the fast paced narrative he is trying to build. The Taliban in Afghanistan are now enemy number one, a de-facto reality, there to be fought. Al-Qaeda is on the run and the original equation from the “Bush doctrine” has morphed into one of containment. America’s nemesis Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are on the loose since the Battle of Tora Bora in 2001 and “fighting and degrading” the Taliban under the leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar now seems to be priority number one. In a shocking admission Senator Billy Graham (R) visiting the AfPak region (coined for Afghanistan-Pakistan) on Obama’s directive, tells it how it is: “If you ask ten of our people what we’re trying to accomplish here, you get ten different answers. This [war] has been on autopilot.”
The dichotomy in decision making in Obama’s Wars is at full display in the later half of the book. On the diplomatic front Obama appoints Richard Holbrooke as his special envoy to AfPak. Holbrooke, who hates being called Dick, is a career diplomat, a stern negotiator from the Bosnian conflict of 90s and according to Biden “the most egotistical bastard [he’s] ever met, but [perhaps] the right guy for the job.” On the war front, the generals, particularly McChrystal is unrelenting in his demand for a surge in troops for ground operations in Afghanistan: a number ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 to reverse the momentum of the Taliban. The generals are clever in that all options converge to a singularity: a greater physical presence in Afghanistan. Obama settles for 40,000 with the goal to “degrade” the Taliban “not dismantle, not defeat, not destroy”. This is a huge concession and Woodward’s trepidation is obvious as he highlights Obama’s efforts to allay the fears of his national security advisors with the political cost of giving in to the generals completely.
A Harvard law graduate and a professor of constitutional law, Obama finds himself in a tight spot with Pakistan vis a vis the CIA drone program. Henry Kissinger’s famous quote: “There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests” is an underlying theme of Obama’s Pakistan policy as he initiates a full scale drone operation against Al-Qaeda HVTs (high value targets) in the tribal areas. The upsurge is unprecedented. Speaking at the Brookings institute a year earlier Obama is vociferously critical of Bush administrations drone policy and promises to restore proper legislative and judicial oversight to counterterrorism operations. But the economic realities of this new-age war sets in rather quickly: Pakistan is an unreliable ally, boots on the ground on their territory is not an option, thus the CIA is given a free hand to own the skies, and the rest is history. The book culminates with the lead actors an agreeing to disagree on various policy front and with Obama’s admission that “The instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another—that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy” an excerpt from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech.