Elusive Victories_ The American Presidency at War-Oxford University Press (2012)

424 notes to pages 321‒333

207. Ricks, Gamble , 155.


208. Nyhamar, “Accidental Vacuum or Counterinsurgency Logic?” 9.


209. Ricks, Gamble , 254.


210. Tim Arango, “Clashes Fuel Debate over U.S. Plan to Leave Iraq,” New
     York Times , March 28, 2011. On Iraqi fears and expectations in the wake
     of the fi nal American withdrawal, see Tim Arango, “U.S. Marks End to a
     Long War for an Uncertain Iraq,” New York Times , December 16, 2011.


211. Tim Arango, “Iraqi Youths’ Political Rise Is Stunted by Elites,” New York
     Times , April 13, 2011.


212. On the failure to ask any sacrifi ce of the public, see Woodward, War
     Within , 436.


213. Dyson, “George W. Bush, the Surge, and Presidential Leadership,”
     578–79.


214. Ricks, Gamble , 217.


215. Gideon Rose arrives at the same conclusion. See Rose, How Wars End ,


216. 
     

Chapter 6

1. Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 158.


2. For an analytical assessment of the Afghanistan decision process, see
   James P. Pfi ff ner, “Decision Making in the Obama White House,”
   Presidential Studies Quarterly , 41 (2) (June 2011): 244–62.


3. Seth G. Jones, In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan
   (New York: Norton, 2009, 2010).


4. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 101–2.


5. Obama estimated that public patience with the war would be exhausted
   in two years. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 110.


6. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 41–44, 71, 73, 80–81.


7. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 96–97. My discussion of Obama’s decision
   making on Afghanistan is based primarily on Woodward’s account.


8. At a White House meeting of key security offi cials, including Petraeus, on
   October 3, 2009, Obama polled the group and found no one in favor of
   withdrawal. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 186.


9. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 82–86, 118–20.


10. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 82–86, 118–20, 123.


11. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 156, 158, 183–84.


12. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 160; Pfi ff ner, “Decision Making in the Obama
    White House,” 257–58.


13. In addition to Woodward, Obama’s Wars , see especially Peter Baker,
    “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan,” New York Times ,
    December 6, 2009.


14. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 8.


15. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 106–7, 190.


16. Woodward, Obama’s Wars , 77, 214–43.