By Dr Sharifullah Dorani*
Introduction
President Barack Obama’s policymaking team for the decision to surge (and, in most cases, for the decision to withdraw) US troops in Afghanistan could be divided into five: the Vice-President, ‘the inner circle’, ‘the outsiders’, the General David Petraeus camp, and the President himself. Each, and its influence on the decision to surge, are considered as part of my analysis.
This article examines the outsiders’ contributions to policymaking regarding Afghanistan. They are National Security Advisor (NSA) James Jones, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, and US Representative for Afghanistan and PakistanRichard Holbrooke. Though armed with decades of foreign policy and military experience, these outsiders were ultimately marginalised from the inner circle, their voices heard but largely dismissed. This article argues that their limited influence stemmed not from a lack of expertise or opposing arguments, but from a fundamental clash of styles, deep-seated personality conflicts, and a failure to adapt to the centralised, loyalist-driven structure of the Obama White House. By examining the unique struggles of each individual, this analysis will demonstrate how the administration’s internal dynamics effectively neutralised the very expertise it had sought to incorporate.
This article has three sections. Section one covers James Jones. Section two covers Dennis Blair. Section three covers Richard Holbrooke.
National Security Advisor Jones
One member was the NSA James Jones. He, together with other military men such as Dennis Blair, is said to have been appointed for political purposes. The military men could provide a cover for Obama’s defence and security decisions, offer assurances against the known Republican charges that Democrats were weak on national security issues, explain military traditions and costumes to a president who did not know much about them, keep relations between the military establishment and the President smooth, and, if necessary, be a force against the military establishment, especially Jones who had a reputation for outspokenness – for example, publicly claiming that Rumsfeld had ‘systematically emasculated’ the Joint Chiefs, or warning Pace to stop being ‘the parrot on the secretary’s shoulder’.[1]
But Jones ─ a retired Marine general, a former commander, a NATO commander and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s part-time envoy for security in the Middle East ─ proved to be a weak NSA during the Af-Pak review, and, despite his attempts (e.g. to put a stop to the military campaign in the media), he failed to be a counterweight to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Michael Mullen and David Petraeus the way he had been expected to.
Jones never became one of Obama’s trusted advisors or inner circle because Jones and Obama did not know each other personally and only met twice before Jones’s appointment as an NSA ─ Jones was recommended by foreign policy ‘wise men’, former NSA Brent Scowcroft in particular, to Obama. Since Jones was used to a military decision-making style in which juniors obeyed seniors, he found it difficult to adapt to the centralised decision-making style the ‘lawyer-professor-politician’ President adopted in which the inner circle, as opposed to the immediate advisors, had the most say. As a former military commander, he found it difficult to act like an aide to Obama to fit the inner circle or become responsive to Obama’s decision-making style. Consequently, the two barely met.
To make matters worse, the inner circle seemingly did not treat Jones as a NSA. Examples include cutting Jones’s access to the President; refusing to show Jones the President’s inaugural speech, even though Jones asked for it; preparing memos without Jones’s knowledge; sidelining Jones by often talking to Deputy National Security Advisor Donilon; often staying away from Jones’s strategy briefings; interrupting Jones in meetings to say the NSA was wrong on Obama’s views and thoughts; getting things done by invoking the President; and leaking derogatory information about Jones, accusing him of being lazy, forgetful, and out of touch with the President. Jones repeatedly urged Obama to do something about the inner circle’s contemptuous treatment of him, but, according to Jones, Obama was not tough on what Jones privately called the ‘Mafia’, the ‘campaign set’, the ‘water bugs’[2] who flit around, and consequently did not take care of the situation.
On the contrary, since Obama cared a lot about having a problem-free and smooth administration, and Jones’s quarrel with the inner circle (and other outsiders who, too, came into conflict with the inner circle) became an obstacle to that, Obama eventually had to fire him (and the other outsiders).
Being close to a president and his trusted advisors as well as following his operating style are two factors that make an NSA effective, but none of the conditions existed in Jones’s case. Consequently, his voice was lost in policymaking for the decision to surge, even though his views, especially those regarding the conditions of the counterinsurgency strategy, were more compatible with the arguments made by the Biden camp than the military.[3]
Jones’s deputy, Donilon, on the other hand, worked much harder and longer and handled most of the day-to-day issues at NSC. His administrative experience during the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton Administrations made it easier for him to be an aide and responsive to Obama’s operating style. Donilon’s closeness to Biden (he worked for Biden during the primaries in 2008, and previously in 1988 during Biden’s short presidential race), National Security Advisor to the Vice-President Antony J. Blinken (old friend and colleague), White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (friend for several decades), National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis Mark W. Lippert and National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, further played to his advantage.
Thus, a mixture of giving the highest attention to the president’s instructions, hard work, and his closeness to the President and those close to him turned him into ‘one of my [Obama’s] closest advisors’. By many accounts, Donilon was almost the NSA, and acted like one.[4]
Director of National Intelligence Blair vs Panetta
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dennis Blair ─ the commander of all US forces in the Pacific, a Rhodes Scholar, a White House Fellow, and a senior military aide for the NSC ─ was another outsider and likewise less prominent compared to his deputy Brennan. Like Jones, Blair could not become responsive to Obama’s operating style. As a military man, the intelligent and straightforward Blair spoke what was on his mind, but Obama did not seem to appreciate Blair’s bluntness. After decades of service, Blair could not change his style to please the President. It began to create a distance between the President and him.
Another factor was the ambiguous authority his job carried. His job as the Director of National Intelligence, created during the Bush Junior era, replaced (theoretically) the CIA Director in running the American intelligence community, including briefing the President every morning. But the law had left out some grey areas, for example, the extent of the DNI’s authority over the CIA, or the nature of the relationship between the CIA Director and the President were unclear. Was the CIA Director to report directly to the President or to the DNI? While this remained unclear, Blair demanded authority over the CIA’s covert action programmes (such as the drones) and asked for the station chiefs to come from other intelligence agencies, too.
But due to his ‘extraordinarily deep institutional knowledge of the White House, Congress, and the CIA’ in the course of the four decades service in government,[5] and his friendships with some powerful individuals (e.g. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his protégé, Emanuel, who had helped him in the CIA appointment), CIA Director Leon Panetta, to Blair’s frustration, successfully defended his turf. Blair was on good terms with Jones, but, as Blair himself admitted, Jones himself was an outsider.
The turf battle between Panetta and Blair created obstacles to the smooth running of the administration, and further distanced Blair from Obama.[6]
The third factor, and the most important one, that deteriorated the relationship between the President and his DNI, was the Brennan factor.
Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan was from the outside, but he was another insider. Neither Donilon nor Brennan would have been deputies had the administration been certain that they would secure a Senate confirmation. Due to Donilon’s previous connection to Fannie Mae, Brennan’s reputation for being President George W Bush’s man and his allegedly public support for transferring ‘terrorists’ to the countries where they might be tortured, their names were withdrawn from the top positions. However, they were still treated as if they were the top men, not deputies.
Brennan’s office was located less than a minute away from the Oval Office, and so Obama asked Brennan for advice whenever he had questions about intelligence issues. As an ex-CIA specialist on Middle Eastern countries, Brennan was versed not just in intelligence issues, but also in foreign policy issues. Thus, due to his access to Obama and his knowledge in foreign policy , he had more say in intelligence issues than the CIA Director or Blair.
According to American Journalist James Mann, for former CIA Director Michael Hayden, Brennan was the actual DNI, not Blair. After the middle of November, according to Woodward, the President no longer allowed Blair in NSC meetings for the Af-Pak review, as he was ‘edging too much into policy advice’. Yet Brennan remained part of the review up to the end.
In sum, the relationship between Obama and Blair was not close, but grew further apart due to Brennan’s closeness with Obama, the White House’s backing of Panetta’s turf, and the report on the bomber from Yemen, which put the blame on the individuals at the National Counterterrorism Center, but Blair disagreed and told Obama and Brennan to change it even if it meant they had to delay the timing of a very crucial press conference. To Obama’s frustration, it was changed but Blair was shortly fired.[7]
US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Holbrooke
Given US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke’s job title (overseeing all the State Department’s work on Afghanistan and Pakistan and coordinating diplomacy with all the regional countries), his almost 50-year experience in American foreign policy (active in the Democratic Party before many of the Obamians were not even born), his accomplishments (notably, bringing an end to the Balkans conflict in the 1990s), and his strong and forceful manner (nicknamed ‘The Bulldozer’), Holbrooke should have been the most effective, but he was not and consequently his voice was lost, even though his beliefs (or belief system) was in sync with the Biden camp (and Obama) over the conditions of the counterinsurgency strategy, Pakistan-related problems, and the possibility of Afghanistan turning into Vietnam covered in one of my articles.
Like Biden (and Obama), he was practical, pragmatic, not an ideologist, not a pacifist, and believed in the application of military force if the cause was worthy, but did not support expensive wars that posed a threat to the US economy, which determined the fall and rise of a nation, and it was no surprise that he found himself naturally in agreement with the Biden camp’s proposal for a counterterrorism-plus strategy and in disagreement with McChrystal’s proposal for a counterinsurgency strategy.[8] For Holbrooke and his staff and advisors, including American leading expert on Afghanistan Barnett Rubin, there was one remedy for Afghanistan, and that was a regional solution/peace settlement that gave Afghanistan’s neighbours a stake in the settlement, most crucially Pakistan, which had destabilised Afghanistan thus far.[9] As already said, neither did Holbrooke’s possible peace deal receive serious attention during the Af-Pak review, nor did Holbrooke manage to influence the decision in any way or shape. This had a variety of reasons, some relating to Holbrooke himself and others to the numerous impediments to a peace settlement.
First, while Obama was in favour of peace talks, Mullen, Petraeus, and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton thought the Taliban would not negotiate because they had the momentum ─ the counterinsurgency strategy strategy would first gain momentum and then the US would talk. Panetta, however, thought that the US could not negotiate with the Taliban until it denounced Al-Qaeda, or else the US would be dealing with terrorists.
Second, Holbrooke’s aggressive campaign against Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, during which he had called Obama inexperienced and young and was destined to fail, was still in the mind of the Obama team, and, in certain cases, had left ‘scars’. According to Gates, the ‘team of rivals’ approach worked better between Obama and Clinton compared to lower levels.
Third, as far as Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran was concerned, Holbrooke seemed to be of the wrong generation (compared to the inner circle and the President), ‘serving at the wrong time’, as, apart from Clinton, nobody seemed to like him in the administration. Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Benjamin Rhodes did not like Holbrooke because of his efforts to bring strong foreign policy experts into the Democratic Party around Clinton, and because they thought he leaked sensitive information to journalists; Biden did not like him since the Clinton Administration, thinking of him as egoistic. Jones found Holbrooke ‘unctuous and prolix’ and sympathised with his fellow military friends Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Afghanistan-Pakistan Douglas E. Lute and US Ambassador in Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, both of whom did not get on with Holbrooke due to Holbrooke’s micromanagement of policy: for example, sending dozens of emails and requests for information on a daily basis. Obama kept a distance from Holbrooke and never granted him one-to-one meetings. His manically intense and ‘in your face’ manner clashed with Obama’s calm and measured demeanour and his well-known ‘no drama rule’. According to Clinton and Chandrasekaran, many times Obama wanted to remove him from his post, but Clinton would intervene and save his job.
Thus he was left ‘marginalised’ and the ‘odd man out’ among the White House advisors, and it did not take long before an anti-Holbrooke attitude developed in the NSC, to the extent that Holbrooke’s analysis was sometimes left unread in inboxes.
Four, Holbrooke was ‘undercut’ not only by the White House, but also by the presidential palace of Arg in Afghanistan. Holbrooke obsessively supported Ashraf Ghani Ahmedzai to win during the 2009 presidential election, and this angered Hamid Karzai. During the time of the Af-Pak review, Gates and Chandrasekaran reveal, the relationship between Holbrooke and Karzai had deteriorated to the extent that Karzai had told his aides he did not want to meet Holbrooke again because he believed the former was interfering in the election; the American Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan was almost barred from seeing the President of the very country he was trying to fix! John Kerry had to be sent to fix the situation and the White House blamed Holbrooke for making a bad situation worse.
Obama and his inner circle were aware of his influence in Afghanistan being very limited, but, instead of supporting Holbrooke, the White House did not seem to care about his barring. Holbrooke himself could not do much with Karzai. He could credibly threaten President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević, but with an elected president (Karzai) he could not do so, especially when Obama did not support him.
Finally, since Clinton (who disregarded Holbrooke’s advice on Afghanistan) supported the surge, he could not make his opposition as publicly obvious as Eikenberry did, and therefore remained quiet and, consequently, less effective.[10]
For those factors, his contribution to the Af-Pak review, notably his goal to make the peace deal with the Taliban a central focus of the review, was limited. The assumption that the Taliban would not negotiate because it had the momentum was taken at face value and was not argued in detail. Out of all the above factors, it was the lack of support from the President that really devastated Holbrooke and his strategy.[11]
Conclusion
The experiences of James Jones, Dennis Blair, and Richard Holbrooke demonstrate a clear pattern: despite their distinguished careers and expertise, they were marginalised and ultimately ineffective in shaping the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy. While their perspectives were technically ‘heard’, they were (in most cases) not listened to, and their influence was minimal.
Several factors contributed to their shared fate as outsiders. A key reason was their inability to adapt to the centralised decision-making style of President Obama and his inner circle. Unlike the ‘campaign set’ who had a pre-existing rapport with Obama, these military and foreign policy veterans were accustomed to more traditional hierarchies and found themselves at odds with the administration’s informal, collegial, and highly insular approach. Jones, for example, failed to become a trusted advisor and was constantly undercut by the inner circle. Similarly, Blair’s blunt style clashed with Obama’s temperament, and his authority was consistently eroded by the White House’s support for CIA Director Leon Panetta. Holbrooke, a seasoned diplomat, was sidelined not only by the White House’s lingering distrust from his past political rivalries but also by an internal administration that seemed to view him as an anachronism.
Ultimately, the article shows that their removal was not a coincidence, but a consequence of the administration’s preference for a problem-free and smooth operation. The outsiders, with their strong personalities and differing operational styles, created friction, and in a White House that valued cohesion above all else, they were deemed expendable. Their stories serve as a cautionary tale about the importance of personal relationships and operational compatibility within a political administration, proving that even the most accomplished individuals can be rendered powerless if they fail to fit within the established inner circle.
References
Barnes, Julian E., ‘Urgent shift in works on Afghanistan’, Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2008.
Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Clinton, Hillary Rodham. 2014. Hard choices. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster.
Daalder, Ivo H., and I. M. Destler, ‘In the Shadow of the Oval Office; The Next National Security Advisor’, The Brookings Institution, January/February, 2009, <http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2008/12/01-national-security-adviser-daalder>.
Destler, I. M. Donilon to the Rescue; The Road Ahead for Obama’s Next National Security Advisor’, Foreign Affairs, 2010, October 13, 2010.
Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war.
Holbrooke, Richard, ‘The Next President; Mastering a Daunting Agenda’, Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2008, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63563/richard-holbrooke/the-next-president>.
Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking.
‘Opening Statement’, ‘Kerry on President Obama’s National Security Team Nominations,’ Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 28, 2011, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/kerry-on-president-obamas-national-security-team-nominations>.
Woodward, Bob. ‘Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military’, The Washington Post, July 1, 2009.
Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster.
[1] Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 36-38; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 227; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 9, 25.
[2] Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 126-127, 131-132, 137-140, 161, 168-169, 198; Woodward, Bob. ‘Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military’, The Washington Post, July 1, 2009.
[3]Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 126-127, 131-132, 137-140, 161, 168-169, 198; Woodward, Bob. ‘Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military’, The Washington Post, July 1, 2009; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, pp. 290-292, 376-377; Daalder, Ivo H., and I. M. Destler, ‘In the Shadow of the Oval Office; The Next National Security Advisor’, The Brookings Institution, January/February, 2009, <http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2008/12/01-national-security-adviser-daalder>; Destler, I. M. Donilon to the Rescue; The Road Ahead for Obama’s Next National Security Advisor’, Foreign Affairs, 2010, October 13; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 9, 10, 212-225; Barnes, Julian E., ‘Urgent shift in works on Afghanistan’, Los Angeles Times, December 28, 2008.
[4] Destler, I.M. Donilon to the Rescue; The Road Ahead for Obama’s Next National Security Advisor’, Foreign Affairs, 2010, October 13; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 40, 200; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 226-227, 237; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, pp. 291, 496.
[5] ‘Opening Statement’, ‘Kerry on President Obama’s National Security Team Nominations,’ Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 28, 2011, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/kerry-on-president-obamas-national-security-team-nominations>.
[6] Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 57, 122; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, p. 11, 43, 105, 144, 214-215; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, p. 294.
[7] Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 105, 216-221; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, p. 265. The bomber from Yemen attempted to detonate plastic explosives while on board a US aircraft. The report blamed the National Counterterrorism Center for numerous failures, including the failure to prevent the bomber from boarding the aircraft.
[8] Holbrooke, Richard, ‘The Next President; Mastering a Daunting Agenda’, Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2008, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63563/richard-holbrooke/the-next-president>; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 21, 125, 229; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 222-223, 225, 231; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, p. 296.
[9] Holbrooke, Richard, ‘The Next President; Mastering a Daunting Agenda’, Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2008 ; Bird, Tim and Alex Marshall. 2011. Afghanistan: how the west lost its way. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 226; Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 225.
[10] Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 91-94, 127, 223-233; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. 88, 229; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, pp. 287, 350, 358, 384-385; Clinton, Hillary Rodham. 2014. Hard choices. New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, p. 141.
[11] Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 230; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, p. 296.
*Sharifullah has a PhD from Durham University in the UK on America’s Afghanistan War. He has authored several articles and two acclaimed books: The Lone Leopard, a novel set in Afghanistan, and America in Afghanistan, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Sharifullah is the founder of CEPSAF and the South Asia and Middle Eastern Editor at CESRAN International.