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Confront And Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars And Surprising Use Of American Power (2012)

by David E. Sanger(Favorite Author)

3.99 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Crown Publishing Group

review 1: This is a sequel to David Sanger’s previous project, The Inheritance, a volume the New York Times reporter released in 2009 to chronicle “the national security challenges left to President Barack Obama.” As such, it’s based on reporting Sanger himself did as a chief Washington correspondent following Obama’s inauguration up through April of 2012. By his own admission, Sanger used his own news stories as well as “selective use” of State Department cables WikiLeaks released as published by the London Guardian and subsequently by the Times. “The bulk of the reporting in (Sanger’s latest) book was gathered through interviews with senior administration officials and dozens of their deputies and assistants.” Over the course of the summer of 2011, “almos... moret every senior member of the president’s national security team” sat down to talk to the author.The result of all those interviews Sanger conducted, “on background” or not, is a summary of Obama’s foreign policy efforts during his first three years in office. Sanger explores the current administration’s role in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Arab Spring, China and North Korea.What you should come away from this behind-the-scenes journal are two questions. Just what were or are Obama’s secret wars? Just when did Obama confront and conceal? Yes, Sanger does roll back the curtain covering the so-called “Olympic Games.” For the uninformed, that code name identifies “America’s most closely guarded covert operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program.” In short, it’s cyber warfare, begun under President George W. Bush, but ratcheted up under Obama. Unless I missed something, what was popularly called Stuxnet, a cyber worm aimed at Iran’s uranium enrichment program, was the only example of a secret war I found in these pages. As for Obama’s efforts to “confront and conceal” you should find precious little evidence of both in Sanger’s sequel. But, in an effort to sell more copies, aren’t most newspapers notorious for drafting headlines that rarely live up to their hype? This might be what’s going on here. Perhaps the most significant contribution Sanger makes to the current presidential election season is his attempt to shoot down those critics who believe Obama “led from behind” in dealing with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. Sanger also calls the charge that Obama doesn’t believe in “American exceptionalism” a “wrongheaded critique.” In going to bat for Obama on all of his foreign policy decisions, Sanger puts down Bush at every turn. But, isn’t that exactly what you would expect from someone who writes for the New York Times?
review 2: This is a must read for political junkies. The book is a follow up to Inheritance, in which the author discussed the wars and economic troubles that Obama was inheriting from the previous administration. This book focusses on how Obama deals with the two wars he inherited as well as new threats and challenges he faced. Readers get an in depth look at the little known world of drone strikes and cyber-warfare. After covering wars in the Middle East, Sanger takes inside the situation room as Obama and his team decide how to react to the Arab Spring. We are given significant insights into why Obama chose to intervene on behalf of the Libyan rebels, but has yet to take any significant steps to aid the rebels in Syria. Finally, we watch as Obama "pivots" his focus from the Middle East to Asia. We watch as Obama struggles to negotiate with China and contain North Korea. This book made me look at Obama's foreign policy in a new light. I wish Obama would be as honest with the American people as he is with David E. Sanger. I received this book free from goodreads.com less

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