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By Root 2127 0

As they tried to form a new democratically elected government, they were under enormous pressure from Syria, which had occupied Lebanon for nearly thirty years. After the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, popular uprisings had caused Syria to withdraw its troops, but car bombings and assassinations of anti-Syrian politicians and intellectuals in Lebanon continued. Iran, meanwhile, was engaged in efforts to destabilize Lebanon, primarily through its sponsorship of the terrorist group Hezbollah, whose members were demanding an ever-larger role in the government. In July 2006 after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel and crossed the border, attacking and taking Israeli soldiers hostage, war broke out between Israel and Lebanon. Hezbollah had survived the war, and by the end of 2007 they, along with their ally Syria and their patron Iran, were ascendant in Lebanon. We could have done much more to support the democratic aspirations of the people of Lebanon and thus helped to counter the growing regional prominence of Iran and Syria, had an unrealistic effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not absorbed so much of our attention.

Moreover, as we entered our final year in office, we still had much work to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Afghanistan there was a continued need for diplomatic heavy lifting as we supported Hamid Karzai’s effort to extend the central government’s authority throughout the country and continued to fight the Taliban. We also had much to do in Pakistan, where President Musharraf had provided key support, but had an increasingly weak hold on power over a government whose loyalties were at times divided.

In Iraq, there was good news. The surge of troops and the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy were showing signs of success. Security was returning to large parts of the country, including Baghdad. But as General Petraeus noted, the gains were “fragile and reversible.” We needed to continue the fight and follow through on our efforts to aid the Iraqi people in solidifying their political progress. Our relationship with the Iraqis was evolving, from one where we had been in complete control of the country to one where key treaties would govern the relations between our two sovereign nations. We were working on a status of forces agreement, or SOFA, that would govern our military relations, as well as a strategic framework agreement that would establish our diplomatic, security, and economic relations. These agreements, which would establish American relations with Iraq for many years to come, deserved the highest levels of diplomatic attention. They would highlight one of the most significant accomplishments of George Bush’s presidency—the liberation of Iraq and the establishment of a true democracy in the Arab world.

ON JANUARY 4, 2008, the director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, came into the Oval Office for our regular morning intelligence briefing. He surprised us by bringing three analysts with him, experts on North Korea. A National Security Council meeting on that subject was scheduled for 8:35, and as I later understood, there had been some skirmishing about how much intelligence would be provided in the memo that went to NSC members ahead of time. The State Department had been trying to keep it to a minimum, so McConnell apparently decided to bring the latest thinking on the subject of North Korea directly to the president. President Bush grilled the analysts, homing in on a central question: Were the North Koreans likely to give up their nuclear weapons as a result of the negotiations going on through the six-party talks? The experts were not optimistic.

We walked from the Oval Office to the newly renovated Situation Room, where the National Security Council meeting was being held. The high-tech meeting room was packed. Every seat at the table and against the outer wall was filled. The president ignored the agenda and dove right in. Directing his questions to Chris Hill, who was seated against the wall behind Secretary Rice, the president