Confront and Conceal

Confront and Conceal will examine the decision making and key challenges in Obama's first three and a half years in office. This is a fascinating, unflinching account of these complex early years, in which the president and his administration have found themselves struggling to catch up to a world where power is diffuse and America's ability to control grows ever more elusive.

Zusatztext "A must-read for policy wonks and a good primer on how American power works beyond our borders." Kirkus "Penetrating history of the presiden'ts effort to grapple with a world in flux..." New York Times "Sanger is one of the leading national security reporters in the United States! and this astonishingly revealing insider's account of the Obama administration's foreign policy process is a triumph of the genre.'' Foreign Affairs "Meticulously reported! immensely readable..." The Washington Post Informationen zum Autor David E. Sanger Bestselling author of The Inheritance Klappentext "This astonishingly revealing insider's account of the Obama administration's foreign policy process is a triumph." -Foreign Affairs President Obama's administration came to office with the world on fire. Confront and Conceal is the story of how, in his first term, Obama secretly used the most innovative weapons and tools of American power, including our most sophisticated-and still unacknowledged-arsenal of cyberweapons, aimed at Iran's nuclear program. Washington and the world were rocked by Confront and Conceal, which goes deep into the Situation Room as Obama questions whether this new weapon can slow Iran and avoid a war-or whether it will create blowback, as the Iranians and others retaliate with cyberattacks on the United States. It describes how the bin Laden raid worsened the dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan, and how Obama's early idealism about fighting a "war of necessity" in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue, frustration, and now withdrawal. As the world seeks to understand how Obama will cope with nationalistic leaders in Beijing, a North Korea bent on developing a nuclear weapon that can reach American shores, and an Arab world where promising revolutions turned to chaos, Confront and Conceal-with an updated epilogue for this paperback edition-provides an unflinching account of these complex years of presidential struggle, in which America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive. Chapter 1 Blowing Smoke secret islamabad 002295 Money alone will not solve the problem of al-Qaeda or the Taliban operating in Pakistan. A grand bargain that promises development or military assistance in exchange for severing ties will be insufficient to wean Pakistan from policies that reflect accurately its most deep-seated fears. The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistanceeven sizable assistance to their own entitiesas a trade-off for national security. Anne Patterson, then US ambassador to Pakistan, in a secret cable to the National Security Council, September 23, 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks On a Sunday morning in early October 2011, President Obama's national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was driven through a wealthy suburb of Abu Dhabi. It was the kind of backdoor, no-photos diplomatic mission he enjoyed most: the quiet delivery of an urgent message directly from the president of the United States. A decade after 9/11, Donilon was overseeing the Obama administration's effort to end what he called the messiest unfinished business of the Bush years: Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq was in its final chapter: in just a few months, the last American troops would drive out of the country on the same road they had driven in on, eight years before. Extracting Washington from Afghanistanthe war of necessity as Obama used to put it, before he reconsidered the phrasewas far more difficult. A promising-sounding game plan, to train the Afghan troops to defend their own country, was sputtering along. But precious few of the gains American troops had fought for seemed permanent. Obama's aides feared that the American withdrawal could lead to economic crisis a...

Autorentext

David E. Sanger Bestselling author of The Inheritance

Klappentext

"This astonishingly revealing insider's account of the Obama administration's foreign policy process is a triumph." -Foreign Affairs

President Obama's administration came to office with the world on fire. Confront and Conceal is the story of how, in his first term, Obama secretly used the most innovative weapons and tools of American power, including our most sophisticated-and still unacknowledged-arsenal of cyberweapons, aimed at Iran's nuclear program.

Washington and the world were rocked by Confront and Conceal, which goes deep into the Situation Room as Obama questions whether this new weapon can slow Iran and avoid a war-or whether it will create blowback, as the Iranians and others retaliate with cyberattacks on the United States. It describes how the bin Laden raid worsened the dysfunctional relationship with Pakistan, and how Obama's early idealism about fighting a "war of necessity" in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue, frustration, and now withdrawal. As the world seeks to understand how Obama will cope with nationalistic leaders in Beijing, a North Korea bent on developing a nuclear weapon that can reach American shores, and an Arab world where promising revolutions turned to chaos, Confront and Conceal-with an updated epilogue for this paperback edition-provides an unflinching account of these complex years of presidential struggle, in which America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive.

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

Blowing Smoke

secret islamabad 002295

Money alone will not solve the problem of al-Qaeda or the Taliban operating in Pakistan. A grand bargain that promises development or military assistance in exchange for severing ties will be insufficient to wean Pakistan from policies that reflect accurately its most deep-seated fears. The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistance—even sizable assistance to their own entities—as a trade-off for national security.

—Anne Patterson, then US ambassador to Pakistan, in a secret cable to the National Security Council, September 23, 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks

On a Sunday morning in early October 2011, President Obama’s national security adviser, Tom Donilon, was driven through a wealthy suburb of Abu Dhabi. It was the kind of backdoor, no-photos diplomatic mission he enjoyed most: the quiet delivery of an urgent message directly from the president of the United States. A decade after 9/11, Donilon was overseeing the Obama administration’s effort to end what he called the messiest “unfinished business” of the Bush years: Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq was in its final chapter: in just a few months, the last American troops would drive out of the country on the same road they had driven in on, eight years before. Extracting Washington from Afghanistan—the “war of necessity” as Obama used to put it, before he reconsidered the phrase—was far more difficult. A promising-sounding game plan, to train the Afghan troops to defend their own country, was sputtering along. But precious few of the gains American troops had fought for seemed permanent. Obama’s aides feared that the American withdrawal could lead to economic crisis and a Taliban resurgence.

Meanwhile, the relationship with the truly vital player in the region, Pakistan, had entered into such a death spiral there was a real possibility that American troops would be sent into the territory of an ostensible ally to hunt down insurgents targeting Americans.

At fifty-six, his hair thinning a bit, Donilon looked like a slightly disheveled version of the consummate Washington la…