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Assessing the Surge
December 8, 2008 | Posted by Abu Muqawama - 4:30pm | 17 Comments
I finished two books today. The first was Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
. This book, all about Nelson Mandela's efforts to charm white South Africans through the game of rugby, is a delightful history of the ten years preceding South Africa's emotional World Cup victory in 1995. To a large degree, the author engages in hagiography. (As if Mandela needed it!) And even dead-enders on both sides are shown in a favorable light. That's okay, I guess. Mandela's strength (and weakness?) has been that he, too, has always seen the best sides of people.
I'm a little less willing to forgive this same quality in the other book I finished today -- Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq
. This, too, is hagiography. ("It reads as if ghost-written by Petraeus," one friend complained.) That wasn't my complaint, though. Maybe Petraeus, like Mandela, is a man worth all the superlatives. But every U.S. officer in Robinson's narrative is shown in only the most positive light. Officers are invariably "tough" and "resourceful" and "bright" and "hard-working" and "intelligent." ("Surely there are a few s***bags left in the Army," I found myself asking halfway through.) So like one narrative of the Iraq War -- in which U.S. efforts went from "awesome" (in 2003) to "awesomer" (in 2005) to "awesomest" (in 2007) -- officers are only varying shades of ass-kicking in Robinson's account. This is frustrating. You really have to pick through the book to find the officers truly worth their weights in gold. (Doug Ollivant, currently a director on the National Security Council and once the chief of plans for the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, is one such officer singled out for especial praise.)
Next up on the reading list? Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq
and The Forever War
. I think there will be a little more critical analysis in both books. You, meanwhile, should check out the excellent discussion between Bing West, Linda Robinson and Deb Amos at the Council on Foreign Relations. West is good -- and less hopeful about Iraq than Robinson.
. This book, all about Nelson Mandela's efforts to charm white South Africans through the game of rugby, is a delightful history of the ten years preceding South Africa's emotional World Cup victory in 1995. To a large degree, the author engages in hagiography. (As if Mandela needed it!) And even dead-enders on both sides are shown in a favorable light. That's okay, I guess. Mandela's strength (and weakness?) has been that he, too, has always seen the best sides of people.I'm a little less willing to forgive this same quality in the other book I finished today -- Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq
. This, too, is hagiography. ("It reads as if ghost-written by Petraeus," one friend complained.) That wasn't my complaint, though. Maybe Petraeus, like Mandela, is a man worth all the superlatives. But every U.S. officer in Robinson's narrative is shown in only the most positive light. Officers are invariably "tough" and "resourceful" and "bright" and "hard-working" and "intelligent." ("Surely there are a few s***bags left in the Army," I found myself asking halfway through.) So like one narrative of the Iraq War -- in which U.S. efforts went from "awesome" (in 2003) to "awesomer" (in 2005) to "awesomest" (in 2007) -- officers are only varying shades of ass-kicking in Robinson's account. This is frustrating. You really have to pick through the book to find the officers truly worth their weights in gold. (Doug Ollivant, currently a director on the National Security Council and once the chief of plans for the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, is one such officer singled out for especial praise.)Next up on the reading list? Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq
and The Forever War. I think there will be a little more critical analysis in both books. You, meanwhile, should check out the excellent discussion between Bing West, Linda Robinson and Deb Amos at the Council on Foreign Relations. West is good -- and less hopeful about Iraq than Robinson.
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