Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2014
This book was endorsed by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in a recent column. The introduction is entitled "the enemy in the mirror" which presages a theme that our foreign-policy establishment is its own worst enemy. The author suggests that groupthink is highly prevalent and is at fault for much of the failure in US policy during the last two decades. This policy has been driven by a systematic overreaction and lack of understanding of the Islamic jihadism movement and its connection with the Arab states in which it is most active.
Too bad the author did not really follow through on this theme. Instead he offers a wide-ranging account of US foreign (security) policy starting with Bush's second term. There is way too much focus, using insider accounts, on the policy process without providing much insight into policy substance. Which leads to a second major problem with the book. It overstates the recovery in the second Bush term from the disasters of the first term. And it uncritically equates arguable problems with Obama's foreign policy process with substantive policy errors.
In summary, the author’s judgments about many facets of foreign policy under Obama in particular are largely unsubstantiated by any analysis demonstrating that viable alternatives existed that had a better risk vs. reward calculus. His criticisms about process within the National Security Council and other security agencies are reasonable but don’t register as supporting his substantive policy criticisms - with the obvious exception of the Cheney-Rumsfeld end-run around the Bush NSC leading to the Iraq invasion etc.
His primary argument as to why we are ready to move beyond the climate of fear created by 9/11 is mistaken. He believes that the primary reason for a return to relative normalcy is that the massive national security apparatus that we have built since 9/11 was both necessary and has become effective. The danger may be greater but our defenses are stronger yet, he says. There is no serious critique of the scope and cost of the security-industrial state. In comparison, he barely acknowledges that the threat has been and continues to be grossly overstated. None of the these groups ever had the capability to do lasting harm to the United States except as through our own response we did harm to ourselves.
The 9/11 and other terrorist attacks, shocking as they were, cost a few thousand lives and a few billions of dollars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the security-industrial complex, the inattention to other vital US interests at home and abroad, the near paranoia that riles our domestic politics and drives the clandestine war and surveillance – all these cost many more thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, untold lost opportunities and loss of prestige. That is the victory of Islamic terrorism. Terrorism is defined as a strategy of violence to “create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.” That climate was indeed created and in fact led to grave political errors that have caused more harm to the US than the terrorists could ever have contemplated inflicting on us directly. That is the cost of fear that the author should have made the centerpiece of his book.
For a more detailed analysis, see below:
The first two chapters address the history of the Iraqi war and subsequent insurgency. Unfortunately, most of the attention is addressed to the inside story of the American security leadership, as much on the dysfunction of its processes and personalities as its ignorance of the forces it was trying to contain.
The author fails to analyze for the most part the greatest failure of all of the American Iraq policy which was to be ignorant of the vast potential consequences of destabilization in Iraq by destroying the Saddam regime. In only one instance, on page 58, does the author, after noting the 1400 year feud between Shia and Sunni factions, conclude that "the notion that the brief intervention of United States would be able to manage, sidestep, or resolve that tension is one of the most colossal examples of foreign policy hubris in modern memory." Notably, this observation is a parenthetical to the main narrative. Otherwise, it addresses primarily the tactical considerations involved in the policy, not its utter strategic folly.
A perhaps revealing indication of the author’s ambiguous position with one face as a critic and another as an insider, is a passage about prime minister Maliki. In a statement that appears to have been drafted prior to final publication, the author says that "Maliki subsequently proved to be a very challenging partner at times, but not only has he endured much longer than his predecessors, he is also seen by his American interlocutors as having been much more capable than" his predecessors. Then in a subsequent paragraph, the author takes note of the fact that Maliki was forced to resign in August 2014, apparently after the initial draft of the book was completed. As this sloppy edit suggests, the author apparently bought into the assessment that Maliki was at least marginally successful, a judgment undermined by the events of the months immediately preceding publication of the book.
Chapter 3 covers Bush's second term which the author adjudges a relative success in foreign policy. Interviews with many officials and foreign leaders are said to demonstrate that Bush was well prepared and well liked. His national security team was more functional under new leadership and reformed procedures. The surge is cited as a good example of careful policymaking in contrast to the initial invasion of Iraq. The author spends many pages extolling a variety of other Bush foreign-policy initiatives. There are also many self serving quotes from insiders in the administration, both from their memoirs and interviews by the author, vouching for Bush's intelligence, hard work, and good temperament. He is said to have remained optimistic and very supportive of staff and Cabinet members, much as a coach supports his team members.
Many of the cabinet secretaries are said to be outstanding managers as they came from executive positions in the private sector. One example is Hank Paulson who came from Goldman Saks to Treasury. The author repeats an anecdote to the effect that Paulson agreed to serve out of his sense of public service to deal with the financial crisis that he saw forthcoming. However, one is left to wonder whether Paulson did not see taking the helm of Treasury in that case as a way to protect Goldman and other Wall Street banks. In addition, he is said to have been given the China brief on economic matters which also could redound to the benefit of Wall Street and Goldman in particular. The author offers no hint that Paulson's stint at Treasury could be viewed as a conflict of interest, especially at a time of financial crisis.
I suppose it is fair enough for the author to provide a more balanced assessment of President Bush, especially considering his second term, than the common legacy that is attested by critics. On the other hand, in a book about national security, it seems that the extent of the focus on these issues peripheral to the 9/11 response and the financial crisis are rather like discussing how effective the arrangement of the deck chairs was on the Titanic.
Chapter 4 is a largely laudatory exposition of the Bush administration's handling of the financial crisis in its waning days, and of the initial stages of the Obama administration, especially its gearing up to take power before and after the election. Much of the story is told through the eyes of insiders such as Bush’s chief of staff and Tim Geitner who became Obama's Treasury Secretary. There is hardly a note by the author that these accounts are self-serving. One exception is a report of an allegation that the decision by Hank Paulson to let the Lehman firm go into bankruptcy but to save AIG was influenced by the fact that Goldman Sachs was highly connected to AIG. However, he offers no opinion on that point. Otherwise, the account is mostly interesting for describing how Obama went about amassing multitudinous hangers on who were seeking jobs in his administration. His national Security Council ultimately had over twice the number of staff as in the Bush administration, presumably making it exceptionally unwieldy. Obama relied both on his Chicago confidantes and Democratic bigwigs from previous administrations. It appears that hardly anyone from outside the box made it to a position of influence.
Chapter 5 continues with a focus on Afghanistan. Again, much of the narrative and analysis revolves around what the United States did and did not do and the perspectives of policymakers from the time of the invasion until Obama came to power. The implication of this emphasis again seems to be that success depended upon better analysis and execution of a policy that could have been viable. Relatively little analysis is given to the fundamental problem that we were fighting a losing battle from the outset. Why, for example was the Karzai government so inept and the coalition against the Taliban so fragile? Who were the Taliban? And why, against all odds, without any support by a great power such as the United States, were they able to rebound and become such an effective fighting force, holding their own against the Afghan government troops and the NATO coalition forces with such technological superiority? As in Libya, Iraq, and Syria, so in Afghanistan, it appears that only a relatively autocratic, even brutal, regime appears to be able to maintain stability, however much that stability represents repression.
The author describes Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary believing that Afghanistan was a quagmire and that arguably we should in fact cut and run, claiming victory based upon the initial elimination of the Taliban. However, it should have been apparent that this was never a real possibility, and that having broken the governmental structure in Afghanistan, we then owned it. No American president was going to simply withdraw and leave Afghanistan to its own chaotic devices. Simply put, we set ourselves up for failure because we simply had no idea how to actually fix what had been broken, but could not admit it politically. This is the real hubris of American foreign policy, especially the war on terror, that there is a kind of macho unwillingness to admit our own limitations, and perceived failure requires a scapegoat to blame which in turn reinforces the self-defeating machismo imperative.
The author asserts this to be the case with Obama both in his initial emphasis on the war in Afghanistan and in his subsequent commitment to a short-term surge (while simultaneously announcing a scheduled withdrawal). He spends a great deal of time analyzing the ambivalent and tortured process Obama went through in making decisions about Afghanistan while never truly resolving the dilemma. Once again, the author often appears to be suggesting, without quite saying so explicitly, that a more decisive process and longer-term commitment to Afghanistan may have been successful. But then he hedges with statement like the following:
The problems that the United States had undertaken to solve ranged from the difficult to impossible. Indeed that was one of the points central to the arguments of Biden and his supporters: we couldn't achieve what we wanted to because we never intended to stay for the long haul nor did we have the means or the know-how of transforming these societies to the point that they themselves would come to be effective advocates for and insurers of the conditions we saw to be in our interest. So a process was undertaken whereby the people acting in a worthy way sought to achieve an outcome that they believed would be in the best interests of the American people. Never mind that it might not be possible.
The author never himself fully weighs in to the central question of whether any strategy could have been successful in Afghanistan. He cites Rumsfeld as generally having lobbied for the cut and run option after defeating the Taliban and concludes that Biden was on the same page, supporting only a counterterrorism option as distinct from a counter insurgency (nation-building) policy. He quotes Condoleezza Rice, seemingly approvingly, as believing that the intractable situation in Pakistan made it essentially impossible to decisively deal with the Taliban, and that it took the Bush administration many years to fully grasp this. And this reality seems to excuse the fact that the Bush administration dithered in its approach to Afghanistan up till its last months.
Again, totally missing from the analysis is a serious consideration of the nature and commitment of the Taliban as an indigenous domestic force within Afghanistan and its relative competency, even legitimacy, vis a vis the other factions in the country. The author gives the impression that American policy was more decisive than the complex history and dynamics of domestic politics within Afghanistan itself. He never seems to fault American policy for simply failing at a fundamental level to understand the nature of the forces it is dealing with and its own relative impotence. The implied message is that America could do practically anything if it only had the will and persistence, as if political and economic realities at home were a secondary factor. But one must question whether the United States could permanently change the political and social landscape in a country like Afghanistan regardless of the resources it might bring to bear.
The author also fails to take note of the fact that United States policy contributed to the current situation in Afghanistan by supporting the rebels against the Soviet backed regime in the 1970s. It seems quite possible that had we avoided supporting the rebels, more stable Afghan elements may have eventually driven out the Soviets without the subsequent takeover by the Taliban. Clearly, our intervention, if it succeeded at all, was only to replace one problematic regime with a far more dangerous and intractable one. But our eye was on the Soviets then, ignoring collateral consequences that were difficult to foresee. Isn’t that just the case now when the war on terror masks our other long term interests?
After chapters 6 and 7 focusing on China and Russia, respectively, the author turns to the Middle East and continues his rather critical assessment of Obama in recounting the Arab-Israeli policy which seems to fault inept handling of relations with Israel but lacks a reciprocal critique of the Netanyahu government. His conclusion about Russia at least avoids the simplistic notion that somehow Putin was driven by manifest American weakness. Putin knew as well as everyone else that the West would not intervene militarily to prevent Russian meddling in Ukraine, nor even an outright invasion. Most likely Putin was playing what he thought was a sophisticated game of big power politics where he could seize advantage internationally at little expense abroad and to his political benefit at home. The recent the collapse of the Russian rouble is belying the idea that Russia or Putin will garner long term strategic gains for its trouble in the Ukraine.
The section on Israel recounts a familiar tale of intransigence and mutual blaming on the part of the adversaries which no US administration can overcome. The author titles his chapter on the Arab Spring as “Leading from Behind” – a phrase apparently used by an Obama staff person which was turned around by his political opponents to suggest weakness. The author provides a fairly neutral account of Obama’s cautious response, including his one ultimately strong action in using force with allies against Gaddafi. But here again he leans toward a conclusion that Obama simply didn’t know what to do and arguably should have. But he makes no good case that there were actually any viable options that would have changed the outcomes in any of the Arab countries prior to Syria (which he saves for a later discussion). He never takes a clear stand on what else the United States could have done to mitigate the damage done by the Arab Spring much less prevent it. He acknowledges that in the end the US had “contradictory interests” which made a strong policy of support for neither the incumbents nor their opposition advisable. Yet he chides Obama for a lack of “creativity” in issuing the same two prong statements about each crisis: to the government - begin reform, and to the opposition and government - avoid violence. But really what else could the US say? Or do? We lacked influence and credibility to broker any real deal between the political factions in these countries. The days of being a broker of that kind were past. El-Sisi in Egypt, despite his US connections, was not of a character to pull his punches based on anything the US could say or do. He knew that in some ways we needed him as much as he needed us and we would ultimately have no choice but to accept a (possibly less corrupt) authoritarian military regime much like that of Mubarak which we had worked amicably with for a generation.
No deft finessing of the issues in the Arab Spring was possible. People ultimately see through finessing which shows up as hypocrisy by trying to play both sides. By alternately emphasizing our realpolitik security interests and then our idealistic democratic bona fides, playing to the regime and then to the aspirations of dissidents, we appear to be dissembling to both.
The author continues his practice of disparaging the Obama foreign policy while failing to provide defensible concrete alternatives in his discussion of the Syrian civil war. For example, he cites none other than Condoleezza Rice for the proposition that prompt action could have prevented regional powers from entering into the conflict which resulted in its sectarian nature becoming ingrained. She says "I mean it's kind of World War I in microcosm. The United States, of course, could've gone in at one point with an agenda that was nonsectarian but it's now kind of too late for that agenda." The author does not speculate about or elaborate upon what such an "agenda" might be or how it would have actually been effective to prevent the development of a more sectarian conflict. In apparent evenhandedness, he describes the many confounding aspects of the Syrian conflict which made US involvement problematical at best. However, this does not stop him from implying that early intervention would have somehow enabled moderate forces to at least bring Assad to the table. He fails to acknowledge the likely back channel efforts by the US to coax both Russia and Iran into a position supporting a negotiated arrangement that would have Assad leave power to a transitional governement. Evidently, both Russia and Iran determined that their interests were best served by holding firm in support of Assad even at the risk of empowering militant Sunni factions that would threaten their interests as well as those of the United States. It is simply intellectually dishonest to critique the Obama policy without putting forward a plausible alternative policy that reasonably could have made a significant difference to the outcome on the ground.
But the critique continues with respect to the military coup in Egypt. Essentially, Obama refused to take sides with either the Morsi government or the military. This made everyone involved unhappy. The conservative Arab states wanted Obama to denounce Morsi while others argued that we should support a democratically elected government that, whatever it's faults, represented the electoral will of the people during the Arab Spring. Once again, the author implies that early intervention with Morsi may have caused him to rethink his anti-democratic policies. But Morsi had more than sufficient warning from all quarters. The Muslim Brotherhood had originally foresworn participation in presidential politics precisely on the ground that the military might not accept the result. The author presents no arguments or evidence to support his contrary view. In this case, caution did not represent indecision because no intervention was likely to be decisive; yet such intervention would surely be seen as meddling by and inflame constituencies that mattered to broader American interests.
The author then moves on to discuss the 2013 gas attacks by Assad in Syria which precipitated the threat of American bombing in retaliation. He takes note of, but does not unequivocally criticize, Obama's "red line” statement regarding such attacks. Nor does he unequivocally fault Obama's eventual statements that Assad must go. Instead, he objects in perhaps the strongest terms that he uses in the book, to the delays and indecision in the response to the gas attacks. Evidently, Obama had signaled to his national security team that he was prepared to go ahead with modest and surgical strikes against some military installations connected with the gas attacks. But he later changed his mind and surprised his team by insisting that congressional approval was necessary.
No doubt, the handling of the situation was inept. But the author goes further by arguing that the decision to seek congressional approval amounted to an abdication by Obama on the bombing, while in fact it was an attempt to obtain shared responsibility and arguably should have been Obama’s position from the outset. The author doesn't agree with this "better late than never" position. But he hardly makes the case that the bombing would have done any good on its own. It is reasonable to assume that Obama saw that such a bombing campaign would lead to expectations and pressure for further military involvement and felt the need to establish domestic support in order to pursue that route. The author also fails to make the case that, despite the irritations of our Gulf allies in the Arab world, and the impression of weakness that arguably was created among other allies and foes, that ineffectual actions were a better choice than inaction. Notably, despite their carping, these regional allies were not about to commit themselves to any direct action against the Syrian regime. It is, of course, unpleasant for Americans to have to acknowledge their inability to control events in complex regions of the world where we traditionally had considerable influence.
Finally, the author ends his discussion of this subject with the conclusion that US policy in the region has been "swinging from one extreme to another." The one extreme is clearly the invasion of Iraq by Bush. The other extreme is presumably meant to be Obama's determination not to use military force in the Syrian conflict until the emergence of ISIS. But these two are not comparable. Iraq was unquestionably a grave error of policy for which the United States bears full responsibility. The Syrian civil war, by contrast, was not in any significant manner attributable to the policies of United States, and no convincing evidence exists that any military intervention by the United States would have avoided, rather than compounded, the tragedy.
To the clandestine war, run by the CIA and emphasizing drone warfare and other special operations, the author gives what amounts to unqualified support with little discussion or criticism of the rapid and enormous expansion of the intelligence/security apparatus. He blames the massive ground wars for having "more of a tendency to create new terrorists than to eliminate old ones." While this may well be the case, the author offers no evidence that the clandestine operations against terrorists have succeeded in reducing their numbers, and admits that "Al Qaeda would grow and adapt at a speed faster than the US intelligence community could keep up with." Here again, he offers no real insight or evidence as to why the Islamic extremist movements appear to be so resilient and continue their focus against the United States.
This confusion, or ambivalence, about the effectiveness of the war on terror persists in the author’s discussion of the Obama focus on "core Al Qaeda." He says that "getting bin Laden did not actually reduce the terrorist threat in any material way, yet the American people chose to believe that it did… it was actually a moment that ultimately proved that bin Laden was no longer central to the future of an Al Qaeda that had morphed into something more dangerous, more global, and many times larger than the small organization behind the 9/11 attacks." See pages 323–325.
Yet, in the very next paragraph, the author can maintain that "systematically and over time, by increasing intelligence assets, developing better homeland defenses and awareness, giving counterterror operators new tools, and simply working the brief, progress was made." This argument is premised on the claims of John Brennan that, though the terrorists are more numerous and potentially dangerous, American "vulnerabilities" have been reduced and "mitigation steps" have been enhanced. In short, the enemy is more dangerous but our defenses have outstripped the offensive capabilities of the enemy. No consideration is given to the question of whether our clandestine war is a significant factor in the growth of the very terrorist movement it is meant to neutralize.
Having endorsed this view of the President's chief antiterror official, the author nevertheless criticizes Obama's May 2013 speech at the National Defense University in which he stated that going after terrorists "must continue" while asserting that "this war, like all wars, must end." In light of the rise of ISIS, the author suggests that the speech might have been "Obama's own ‘mission accomplished’ moment, the triumph of hope over clearheaded analysis."
In fact, the author's own analysis is anything but clearheaded. Are we safer from terrorists or not? Even if we are safer, is the world at large safer? Is the apparatus of the war on terror cost-effective? Are there any means other than clandestine violence which will actually reduce the number and dangerousness of the terrorists? What conditions are actually causing thousands of young men and women to volunteer to sacrifice their futures and even their lives for an ideology of sectarian violence? Does the pursuit of traditional American interests in the Middle East and elsewhere in the Islamic world exacerbate the terrorist threat? And if so, should those interests be reconsidered in light of the provocations that they create? None of these questions are seriously addressed by the author, nor for that matter by other American policy makers or pundits.
The final stop on the author’s anti-terrorism program tour is cybersecurity. Here again, the author spends most of his time emphasizing the "overreach" of these programs, primarily under Obama. He readily cites the Snowden revelations to support this emphasis. He notes the damage done to the reputation of the US by overzealous collection of massive amounts of private data, of both our allies and potential foes, as well as Americans. But he seems to believe that this problem was primarily a growing pain, if you will, in the development of what amounts, in the words of Lisa Monaco, of the anti-terrorism staff at Obama's White House, to a "good job of creating a counterterrorism structure and apparatus-operationally and policy wise-to learn the lessons of 9/11 and have an ability to meet the threats we face." He also quotes former NSA director Mike Hayden to the effect that the US has now built up "a strong human intelligence collection effort and better electronic intelligence" such that he believes controversial measures adopted in the early years after 9/11 were no longer necessary. In short, the author appears to believe that, despite some excesses in the anti-terrorism effort such as the Iraq invasion and overzealous intelligence gathering, the basic and massive structure of our security program is effective and appropriate.
