Book Review: Obama’s Wars

You may have heard about Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars.  Exerts were released a few weeks ago that generated some accusations against the president, his senior staff, and their relationship with the military.  I wanted to write about some of this at the time, but I wanted to see how those exerts fit into the overall book.

If you only read one more sentence in this post read this one:  Obama’s Wars is a painful book to read.  The writing is jumpy and hard to follow at times.  This was the first book I had read by one of the famed Watergate reporters.  I may have set my expectations too high.  The writing in this book felt like it was Mr. Woodwards first draft, or even his notes from his research for this book. It did not feel like the polished prose of a famous reporter.  A person who theoretically makes his living writing the printed word.

If you get past that, Obama’s Wars does have an interesting story to tell.  The book focuses on President Obama’s handling of the war in  Afghanistan.  There is little to nothing of the presidents domestic policy in this book.  The only real exception to this is that the president did not want Afghanistan to take away from his domestic agenda, or his support in the Democratic Party.  Most of the story appears to be a battle between President Obama and his policy advisers taking on the military.  Surprisingly,  the military seemed to be embodied by General Petraeus.  There were other members of the military, the pentagon, and the Joint Cheifs of Staff throughout the book, but  the military seemed to rally behind Petraeus.   In speaking of a particular decision in this process, Woodward writes, “This was a contest that pitted the president against the military establishment.”  This line could well serve as a subtitle to the entire book.

There is a slight detour in the story about a third of the way into the book.   Woodward gets  a classified, 66 page document from an unnamed source for Obama’s Wars.  The next few pages divert into how Woodward got the classified document printed in the paper.  He ends up negotiating with the government, and does remove certain sections before he prints it.  However, the reader is left wondering if this is the author patting himself on the back for being an opportunist.

I find it very difficult to recommend this book to anyone other than a grad student or PhD candidate writing about Afghanistan, or President Obama.  However, if you really want a peak into the president’s wartime thinking, this might be the book for you.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.