“ …beneath the usual he-said-then-he-said (then-he-said), lurks a saga of tragedy: about the snares and illusions of the war in Afghanistan, the corruption of war generally, and the jangle of motives—the convergence and clash of bureaucratic interest, personal ambition, and earnest strategic analysis—that led Barack Obama to escalate an armed struggle that he didn’t begin and that he knew was fraught with great risk all along.
