Reading Against All Enemies

As I said before, Richard Clarke’s criticisms of the Bush administration need to be taken seriously, so I went out and bought Against All Enemies yesterday. Last night I read the preface and the first two chapters. What stood out for me so far came on page x in the preface, in which he writes:

It is also the story of four presidents:

Ronald Reagan, who did not retaliate for the murder of 278 United States Marines in Beirut and who violated his own terrorism policy by trading arms for hostages in what came to be called the Iran-Contra scandal;

George H.W. Bush, who did not retaliate for the Libyan murder of 259 passengers on Pan Am 103; who did not have an official counterterrorism policy; and who left Saddam Hussein in place, requiring the United States to leave a large military presence in Saudi Arabia;

Bill Clinton, who identified terrorism as the major post-Cold War threaty and acted to improve our counterterrorism capabilities; who (little known to the public) quelled anti-American terrorism by Iraq and Iran and defeated an al Qaeda attempt to dominate Bosnia; but who, weakened by continued political attack, could not get the CIA, the Pentagon, and FBI to act sufficiently to deal with the threat;

George W. Bush, who failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings and then harvested a political windfall for taking obvious yet insufficient steps after the attacks, and who launched an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide

So, in Clarke’s account, three Republicans dropped the ball on terrorism, while the lone Democrat fought the good fight but failed to achieve anything because of Republican attacks. Let’s assume for the moment that Clarke is telling the truth in his characterization of the four presidents (I still need to read those portions). Is he telling the whole truth? Tell you what, let’s rework those bullet points a little bit:

It is also the story of four presidents:

Ronald Reagan, who retaliated vigorously against the most prominent source of anti-American terrorism during the eighties — Libya — through a concerted military and intelligence campaign, and who authorized the capture of Palestinian terrorists following the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro;

George H.W. Bush, who waged a successful diplomatic campaign in the United Nations to impose sanctions on Libya, which eventually forced that country to admit complicity in the Pan Am 103 bombings and permit the operational planners to be extradited; who waged a successful diplomatic and military campaign to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, impose the most comprehenseive sanctions regime in UN history, and protect the Kurds from retribution following the invasion;

Bill Clinton, who — despite being freed from the strictures of the Cold War era — failed to retaliate following the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter in Somalia, and subsequently pulled U.S. forces out of the area; who failed to pressure Saudi Arabia into cooperating in the investigation following the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing; and who again failed to retaliate following the bombing of the USS Cole;

George W. Bush, who took aggressive and appropriate actions following the 9/11 attacks to expel al Qaeda from their Afghan sanctuary; who forced the Pakistani regime to reverse course in their support of the Taliban; who dispatched crucial anti-terrorist support to poor states like Yemen, Georgia and the Philippines; whose efforts have led to the capture or death of two-thirds of al Qaeda’s top echelon of leaders; and who removed Saddam Hussein from power.

Did I stack the deck in the second set of bullet points? Absolutely. My point, however, is that Clarke stacked the deck in the first set of bullet points. Why would he do this? Some will say it’s because Clarke is a partisan hack, which isn’t really credible — he was a registered Republican voted in the Republican primary in 2000, served under three Republican presidents, and already vowed not to advise Kerry. My hunch is that it’s more simple and personal than that. Let’s rework those bullet points one last time:

It is also the story of four presidents:

Ronald Reagan, during which I was just a State Department DAS and therefore had marginal influence;

George H.W. Bush, whose Secretary of State demoted me;

Bill Clinton, who was wise enough to listen to my sage advice and let me run the Principals meetings on counterterrorism;

George W. Bush, who had the gall to strip me of the hard-won autonomy and power I achieved under Clinton and force me to work through the regular chain of command

I’m still going to read the rest of the book. It’s worth remembering that Clarke was correct in his assessment of Al Qaeda, and as the Chicago Tribune points out, even George W. Bush acknowledged to Bob Woodward that bin Laden was not on the top of this administration’s priority list when it took office. And I am curious to see what he has to say about whether/how the decision to invade Iraq undermined the military effort to defeat Al Qaeda. Still, it’s hard not to believe that Clarke’s evaluation of presidential performance is directly correlated with how well those presidents treated Clarke. UPDATE: Greg Djerejian posted something about Clarke from three weeks ago that’s also worth reading.