Times' David E. Sanger: Obama Must 'Re-Balance The Portfolio' And Address Multiple Global Threats

During his seven years covering the White House for the New York Times, Chief Washington Correspondent David E. Sanger has had extraordinary access to U.S. presidents and world leaders. On Thursday, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter gathered with friends and family at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington D.C. to introduce his new book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.

Highlights from the discussion follow. Presidential historian Michael Beschloss and Huffington Post writer Diane Tucker asked these questions. The evening was sponsored by the Center for a New American Security.

In retrospect, did President Bush do the right thing in reacting to 9/11 by declaring a universal war on terrorism?

David E. Sanger: He did the right thing by going back to Afghanistan. However, when George W. Bush declared a universal war on terrorism, his administration began to blunder. They wanted the country to feel at war, but they had a very difficult time identifying the enemy. And then by defining the enemy too broadly, they created the problem of setting people against us who might not have been against us ordinarily. In fact, there were opportunities throughout the Bush administration to divide America's enemies. Those opportunities were missed.

You've called Iraq "The Great Distraction."

The Iraq War so preoccupied the U.S. senior leadership that many greater threats were allowed to fester. President-elect Obama needs to re-balance the portfolio. It's like you're saving to send the kids to college and you invest everything in one stock -- and that stock is Iraq. I don't think the Bush administration intended to invest everything in Iraq. But as the war stretched into three, four, five years...and then turned bad in 2006 and 2007...Iraq just sucked all the air out of the room.

People who voted for Barack Obama want to believe the U.S. will take a new foreign policy path.

In many ways, we will. But I think you're going to be surprised by how much Obama follows through from the Bush administration. Look at the people he has asked to join his administration.

Bush's lack of foreign policy experience caused him to overreact to what was going on in the world. Is Obama starting to drift in the same direction?

I don't think you can read the Presidential Daily Brief -- and its matrix of threats -- without thinking about what it could do to your presidency if even one of them goes wrong. So yes, I think it's possible you could see Obama react much the way Bush did. I'm not sure whether experience is the right metric here, because we didn't have presidential briefs at this granular level before 9/11.

What should president-elect Obama worry about most in the next 12 months?

Obama doesn't have much time left on Iran. By the time he's sworn in, the Iranians will have just enough uranium to make one nuclear weapon. Within a year or two, they'll have enough uranium to declare a significant nuclear capability.

In addition, a crisis could develop fast in Pakistan -- where terrorism meets a weak, newly elected civilian government sitting on an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Pakistan has done a good job of securing the weapons, but we don't know how well they've secured the laboratories where the fuel is produced. It's a big worry.

Another worry is that there's so much distrust between Pakistan and the United States, it's impossible to get a clear vision of what's going on there. Obama will need to rebuild trust with the Pakistani government. But this will be difficult for him to do because of covert operations already underway there.

During the presidential campaign, Obama went out of his way to make the case that he would be a strong ally of Israel.

At the same time, I sense that many people in the Obama camp think the Israelis have gone too far in Gaza. I think they wanted Israel to move to a cease-fire sooner. It's a difficult situation to address right now because Obama's team is so new, its members are still figuring out their relationships with each other.

What challenges does Obama face with Europe?

Europe is celebrating the arrival of the Obama administration. But I think their wild ecstasy will hit a wall when Obama shows them a big map of Afghanistan with many of the European countries nicely arrayed in the safest parts of northern Afghanistan, then gently says that if they're going to be part of the NATO Alliance it would be nice if they would get down to the areas where Taliban members are. I think Obama will be a lot tougher on the Europeans than they expected. Will the Europeans be able to say "no" to a president whose election they celebrated?

You've said that Obama faces a set of challenges unparalleled since FDR. He also inherits more executive power than any other president. What happens at the intersection of these two forces?

That's going to be one of the really interesting things to watch. Many people in the Democratic Party objected when President Bush took on more power. But once you take office, the temptation is not to say, "I want to go back a few generations in presidential power." I think it's very difficult to give power back, particularly when you're in the midst of two wars.

* * * *

"Can we go home now?" asked young Ned Sanger as the evening wore on. As he waited patiently for his dad to sign books, I 'grilled' the personable tweenager for insider information on the author's work habits.

What was it like to see your dad up there on the stage?

Ned Sanger: It was cool, but I didn't understand everything he said.

Are you proud of your dad?

Yeah, it's big. The book took him 2-1/2 years to do.

Did he often work late at night?

I think so. His office is up in the attic.

Does he have a cool attic, like in a Harry Potter movie?

No. My dad's office is messy!

Comments

[bobdob]

David Sanger said: "They wanted the country to feel at war..."

Not precisely. They wanted to declare war so they'd have an excuse to break the law and subvert the Constitution. This phony "war on terror" was launched to provide cover and to provide a rationale.

[jeanrenoir]

Sanger has become the latest journalistic flack for Israel in the mainstream media. Tom Friedman helped fool me into actually supporting the insane and fraudulent war on Iraq which Israel's neocons in the Bush administration gifted our nation so disastrously, and lyingly, with. Now Sanger's the Times point man for beating the new neocon, Israel lobby, drums for fighting Israel's wars for it. The Huffington Post should be Ground Zero for a new MUCH BIGGER antiwar movement against war with Iran than was ever waged against war with Iraq. We've got to wake up this time, and NOT let neocons in journalism or the State or Defense Departments to railroad us into bombing Iran for Israel. Iran is, at this point, indeed Israel's greatest enemy. That doesn't mean we have to do Israel's dirty work for it, or even cooperate in helping Israel do its own dirty work against Iran. Bombing Iran will give us $300 oil and make the current deep world recession a world depression much worse than the Thirties. This, in turn, will create a huge, huge antisemitic, anti-Israel backlash among the tens of millions of American Joe the Plumbers when they have to pay $10 a gallon to fill up their pick-ups. American populist fascism could be Israel's reward for war on Iran.

[nomobull]

considering the source i rather trust OBAMA'S judgment.

[max08]

"By the time he's sworn in, the Iranians will have just enough uranium to make one nuclear weapon. Within a year or two, they'll have enough uranium to declare a significant nuclear capability­."

Who does Sanger think he is? And since when does he have x-ray eyes into Iranian capability? The NIE says Sanger is wrong. So tired of these neocon journos. Good riddance to them all.

[oxi]

He better watch the Russians!

If they deliver those S-300 PMU-2's to Iran, the great war will begin.

Also a Russian carrier battlegroup of 3 ships has arrived off the coast of Syria.

[jeanrenoir]

Exactly right! THIS time, we've got to do absolutely EVERYTHING in our power to demand that Obama NOT follow the AIPAC-NY Times party line in leading us into another war to "help" Israel. Obama does not need Jewish money at all. If he does the right thing, including NOT bombing Iran or encouraging Israel to, Obama will maintain his unexampled popularity with the vast majority of Americans, including liberal Jews. And he will be able to tell the AIPAC Jews to stuff it, since they can't even carry Florida, much less NY or any other state, against Obama's huge popularity. The biggest "change" Obama needs to bring to American foreign policy is independence from AIPAC, in order to do his honest best to be a truly honest broker in the Middle East--the best thing that could happen for Israel, as well as the rest of the region.

[sixx]

Educated citizen who waited eight years, Obama must ignore Sanger.

[dejavu1972]

"I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but, today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one."

NELSON MANDELA, Larry King Live, May 16, 2000

[AllanGoldstein]

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[jhNY]

It's hardly remarkable that a reporter with so much exclusive access to the powerful can find time to gather family and friends around him for the occasion to sell a new book full of old boilerplate while belaboring the interviewer with pronoucements that feature no original insight but plenty of beltway insiderism, mostly revolving around more fear-mongering about foreigners. Reporters make the best repeaters, evidently.

[mymy1]

I supported Obama's election for the promise of change. I'll reserve my full judgement for when he's in the office for a while. However, so far, In foreign policy I have been disappointed very much. The people he has selected to define, manage, and exceute his foreign policy are mostly the old cabal that were failures in many ways or will continue the same weak and failed policies. And please don't tell me Obama is the only one who will set the policy. When all these players hand together they will win over obama. One example is the people who will be spearheading his Middle East foreign policy. Look at the players starting from Clinton, to Dennis Ross, James Steinberg , Dan Kurtzer, ... As Roger Cohen of NY Times mentions in his article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12cohen.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

they are all Jewish and hawkish. They will be towing the lines of Israely government and there will not be any peaceful and just resolutions to the problems there. Actually, with this group I'm afraid there will be more wars/conflicts in the ME.

[dejavu1972]

Like you, I will withhold my judgement until Obama takes office. But like you as well, I have a great deal of trepidation in regard to the pro-Israeli hawks he has selected.

[jeanrenoir]

I was deeply upset when Obama chose Hillary, a complete tool of AIPAC in the past, not least in her own campaign. Her diehard supporters were rich AIPAC Jews, NOT feminists. They saw Obama as a terrifying threat because he alone didn't need Jewish money, as Bush, Clinton, and McCain all had. Our only hope is that Obama is going to use Clinton, so trusted by Israel, to perform a Nixon-goes-to-China ju-jitsu on Israel, by putting much MORE pressure on Israel to make peace with the Palestinians than any president and secretary of state ever had, including Carter or Bush-Baker. THAT would be change we, and the wisest heads in Israel itself, would applaud, to save Likud Israel and neocons like Sanger from themselves.