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All the time they wanted to debate issues with him and to discuss things, but he had no hesitation in asking them very tough questions. and i'm totally supportive. i did that. in fact, i fired more than a few senior military guys. that's what we call civilian control of the military. and i would acknowledge, as i do in the book, that the military leadership did its part to help foster that suspicion. and the best example is in september of 2009 when we were really getting into the debate over the afghan surge and mid-month the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, mike mullen, is up for recon...

Mission will fail is leaked, probably from the military. and then a week after that mccrystal is giving a speech in london and answering a question, essentially rules out the option that the vice president has been pushing. so and then in the middle of all this, david petraeus gives an interview in which he says we have to have a big troop increase and the columnist he gives the interview to is a former speech writer for george w. bush. so the white house sees these four things and they're seeing a concerted effort, an orchestrated campaign to jam the president or box him in, as they said. i k...

Policy on afghanistan as we try to in the book, what you see is a pretty strong policy. the president constantly sending a message he was not going to let this become his vietnam or become a quagmire. even as he announced a big troop increase back in 2009 at west point, he said it would be temporary. that's just an example. but i think there was a certain benefit to that. he pushed it a little too far in the sense that he sent messages to afghan and pakistani friends that were hedging, were not totally committed, we're not totally in. he also told them listen, don't count on us to be there for...

that is simply nonsense. instead of bizarre conspiracy theories, the arab world needs to focus on the dire statistics they highlighted almost a decade ago. the arab spring is a first step for those countries that it has touched. but it needs to be a spring board for 300 million arabs to look deep within and address the fundamentals that the leaders have neglected for decades. education, women's rights and economic reforms, jobs and real freedom. and we will be right back. >> it was a form of hysteria. we'll look back in disbelief of what we've done in the last ten years. it's astonis...

Washington, d.c. trying to figure out what does victory look like? how can we somehow spin this whole deal? it is not going well. therefore where is the plan to give americans confidence that we can actually win, whatever win is? michael steele's problem here is frankly he was too honest about that aspect and republicans, they don't want the rnc chairman saying that but i think democrats and republicans have to own up to what are we doing in afghanistan? is it working? and if not then what do we do? >> john, you were laughing or smiling while roland was talking. tell us why. >> because we stil...