WORTHY FIGHTS
A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace
Leon Panetta with Jim Newton
Penguin Press; 498 pages; $36
Most readers will think they know Leon Panetta's memoir, Worthy Fights, through his recent slash-and-burn interviews, damning United States President Barack Obama for his lack of toughness in Iraq and Syria, and for doing little to check the rise of Islamic terrorism there. But those who actually read his inside account of almost half a century in Washington politics will get a shock: he devotes a mere dozen or so of his nearly 500 pages to criticism of these West Asia catastrophes.
The scorching interviews are out of character for Mr Panetta. He has been a careful, loyal colleague who gets things done, and his book reveals the very able and honest man who seemingly would never turn on his own.
So why did Mr Panetta give those interviews? It's not like him to purposefully cripple a president of his own party whom he basically likes. Nor has he criticised the White House in order to get it to alter its West Asia policies. Indeed he says Mr Obama is currently improving those policies. His interviews must somehow be connected to how he now wants his story to be read.
Mr Panetta has had a banner career - and precious little public recognition for it. I can't think of a single Democrat and only a handful of Republicans who have held as many blue-ribbon positions in both Congress and the executive branch as he has. And he can claim substantial accomplishments: saving the food stamp programme, masterminding the plan to kill Osama bin Laden, helping lead an effective war on terrorism, managing vast cuts in Pentagon spending without political and bureaucratic turmoil. But since this memoir contains not a single news bombshell, not one deliciously nasty word on a colleague and nary a chapter on how Mr Panetta saved the world, only the pages on Syria and Iraq could attract attention. One senses that Mr Panetta realised this after the initial reviews, and so in his interviews those pages have become the book.
But they are not the book. Young people searching for the role model of a public servant will find few as good as Mr Panetta, and if they are willing to forgive the lack of uplifting prose, they will discover in Worthy Fights a plausible path to power and achievement.
Mr Panetta's background was mainly in domestic and budget affairs until President Obama tapped him to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He had the CIA mentality. He tells the story of ordering the killing of a terrorist at an opportune moment even though it also meant the death of the man's innocent wife. Notably, he puts this account in the book's prologue so the reader can't miss it.
Mr Panetta set about arranging the assassination of Qaeda leaders without hesitation. He oversaw the launching of lethal drones at the American terrorists Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. He viewed himself simply as the cop on the beat. He writes that on such occasions his deep Catholic beliefs and upbringing caused him great pain, but obviously not paralysis.
As for Mr Panetta's unhappiness at Mr Obama's failure to keep troops much longer in Iraq, questions abound. Would Iraq's leaders have caved if Washington had put more pressure on them to allow Americans to stay? That's not clear. Would Iraqi forces miraculously have fought the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) jihadis had they been supported by a few thousand Americans? The overwhelming fact is that they shed their weapons and fled. It's hard to blame that on the absence of the United States.
On the failure of Mr Obama's policy in Syria, Mr Panetta is dead right. The president's unwillingness to act damaged his credibility. Still, Mr Panetta knows better than most that the rebels he wanted to arm hardly constituted a genuine fighting force. In his book, he criticises Mr Obama's decision to seek congressional authorisation to attack Bashar al-Assad, claiming that the delay was purposefully designed "to scotch any action". But in an interview last month, he suggested that the president should seek congressional approval to fight ISIS. That is, Mr Panetta apparently thinks the White House is engaging in shocking illegality when it bombs jihadis, but he was all in favour of the executive branch deciding on its own to commit an act of war against a sovereign state. You can't have it both ways. And don't forget that none of the critics who have recently outed themselves - Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates or Mr Panetta - felt strongly enough to bang on the table while in office or threaten to resign.
Mr Panetta devotes considerably more attention to Afghanistan, where he was mostly on board with the White House and was one of its more sophisticated strategists. As the director of the CIA, he was angry with the Pentagon for its political gamesmanship in pushing for a big troop surge that seemed to put the war before the war aims. Indeed he went further than most to argue that America's problem was not with the Taliban per se, but with their harbouring Al-Qaeda. Mr Panetta praises Mr Obama for tacitly accepting this view, when the president announced that the American mission would be to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.
Despite the media frenzy about his recent interviews, Mr Panetta is generally positive about Mr Obama, though negative about his inner team. While he shares the popular assessment of the president's thoughtfulness and intelligence, Mr Panetta also reinforces the common criticisms that Mr Obama runs an overly centralised operation and is reluctant to fight political battles on behalf of his initiatives. He concludes: "Too often, in my view, the president relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader."
The Washington memoir is usually a melange of stick figures, false praise, avoidance of tough issues and banal style, and Worthy Fights fits the mold. But if it lacks value as a historical document or literary treasure, it can certainly serve as a playbook for how to behave with integrity in a city with limited virtue.
© The New York Times Service 2014
A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace
Leon Panetta with Jim Newton
Penguin Press; 498 pages; $36
Most readers will think they know Leon Panetta's memoir, Worthy Fights, through his recent slash-and-burn interviews, damning United States President Barack Obama for his lack of toughness in Iraq and Syria, and for doing little to check the rise of Islamic terrorism there. But those who actually read his inside account of almost half a century in Washington politics will get a shock: he devotes a mere dozen or so of his nearly 500 pages to criticism of these West Asia catastrophes.
The scorching interviews are out of character for Mr Panetta. He has been a careful, loyal colleague who gets things done, and his book reveals the very able and honest man who seemingly would never turn on his own.
So why did Mr Panetta give those interviews? It's not like him to purposefully cripple a president of his own party whom he basically likes. Nor has he criticised the White House in order to get it to alter its West Asia policies. Indeed he says Mr Obama is currently improving those policies. His interviews must somehow be connected to how he now wants his story to be read.
Mr Panetta has had a banner career - and precious little public recognition for it. I can't think of a single Democrat and only a handful of Republicans who have held as many blue-ribbon positions in both Congress and the executive branch as he has. And he can claim substantial accomplishments: saving the food stamp programme, masterminding the plan to kill Osama bin Laden, helping lead an effective war on terrorism, managing vast cuts in Pentagon spending without political and bureaucratic turmoil. But since this memoir contains not a single news bombshell, not one deliciously nasty word on a colleague and nary a chapter on how Mr Panetta saved the world, only the pages on Syria and Iraq could attract attention. One senses that Mr Panetta realised this after the initial reviews, and so in his interviews those pages have become the book.
But they are not the book. Young people searching for the role model of a public servant will find few as good as Mr Panetta, and if they are willing to forgive the lack of uplifting prose, they will discover in Worthy Fights a plausible path to power and achievement.
Mr Panetta's background was mainly in domestic and budget affairs until President Obama tapped him to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He had the CIA mentality. He tells the story of ordering the killing of a terrorist at an opportune moment even though it also meant the death of the man's innocent wife. Notably, he puts this account in the book's prologue so the reader can't miss it.
Mr Panetta set about arranging the assassination of Qaeda leaders without hesitation. He oversaw the launching of lethal drones at the American terrorists Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. He viewed himself simply as the cop on the beat. He writes that on such occasions his deep Catholic beliefs and upbringing caused him great pain, but obviously not paralysis.
As for Mr Panetta's unhappiness at Mr Obama's failure to keep troops much longer in Iraq, questions abound. Would Iraq's leaders have caved if Washington had put more pressure on them to allow Americans to stay? That's not clear. Would Iraqi forces miraculously have fought the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) jihadis had they been supported by a few thousand Americans? The overwhelming fact is that they shed their weapons and fled. It's hard to blame that on the absence of the United States.
On the failure of Mr Obama's policy in Syria, Mr Panetta is dead right. The president's unwillingness to act damaged his credibility. Still, Mr Panetta knows better than most that the rebels he wanted to arm hardly constituted a genuine fighting force. In his book, he criticises Mr Obama's decision to seek congressional authorisation to attack Bashar al-Assad, claiming that the delay was purposefully designed "to scotch any action". But in an interview last month, he suggested that the president should seek congressional approval to fight ISIS. That is, Mr Panetta apparently thinks the White House is engaging in shocking illegality when it bombs jihadis, but he was all in favour of the executive branch deciding on its own to commit an act of war against a sovereign state. You can't have it both ways. And don't forget that none of the critics who have recently outed themselves - Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates or Mr Panetta - felt strongly enough to bang on the table while in office or threaten to resign.
Mr Panetta devotes considerably more attention to Afghanistan, where he was mostly on board with the White House and was one of its more sophisticated strategists. As the director of the CIA, he was angry with the Pentagon for its political gamesmanship in pushing for a big troop surge that seemed to put the war before the war aims. Indeed he went further than most to argue that America's problem was not with the Taliban per se, but with their harbouring Al-Qaeda. Mr Panetta praises Mr Obama for tacitly accepting this view, when the president announced that the American mission would be to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.
Despite the media frenzy about his recent interviews, Mr Panetta is generally positive about Mr Obama, though negative about his inner team. While he shares the popular assessment of the president's thoughtfulness and intelligence, Mr Panetta also reinforces the common criticisms that Mr Obama runs an overly centralised operation and is reluctant to fight political battles on behalf of his initiatives. He concludes: "Too often, in my view, the president relies on the logic of a law professor rather than the passion of a leader."
The Washington memoir is usually a melange of stick figures, false praise, avoidance of tough issues and banal style, and Worthy Fights fits the mold. But if it lacks value as a historical document or literary treasure, it can certainly serve as a playbook for how to behave with integrity in a city with limited virtue.
© The New York Times Service 2014