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During an hour-long conversation mid-flight, he laid out his theory of the war. First, Jones said, the United States could not lose the war or be seen as losing the war. 'If we're not successful here,' Jones said, 'you'll have a staging base for global terrorism all over the world. People will say the terrorists won. And you'll see expressions of these kinds of things in Africa, South America, you name it. Any developing country is going to say, this is the way we beat [the United States], and we're going to have a bigger problem.' A setback or loss for the United States would be 'a tremendous boost for jihadist extremists, fundamentalists all over the world' and provide 'a global infusion of morale and energy, and these people don't need much.' Jones went on, using the kind of rhetoric that Obama had shied away from, 'It's certainly a clash of civilizations. It's a clash of religions. It's a clash of almost concepts of how to live.' The conflict is that deep, he said. 'So I think if you don't succeed in Afghanistan, you will be fighting in more places. 'Second, if we don't succeed here, organizations like NATO, by association the European Union, and the United Nations might be relegated to the dustbin of history.' Third, 'I say, be careful you don't over-Americanize the war. I know that we're going to do a large part of it,' but it was essential to get active, increased participation by the other 41 nations, get their buy-in and make them feel they have ownership in the outcome. Fourth, he said that there had been way too much emphasis on the military, almost an overmilitarization of the war. The key to leaving a somewhat stable Afghanistan in a reasonable time frame was improving governance and the rule of law, in order to reduce corruption. There also needed to be economic development and more participation by the Afghan security forces. It sounded like a good case, but I wondered if everyone on the American side had the same understanding of our goals. What was meant by victory? For that matter, what constituted not losing? And when might that happen? Could there be a deadline?


Bob Woodward


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The book and movie also led to one of Washington D. Woodward and Bernstein followed up with a second successful book on Watergate entitled The Final Days (Simon and Schuster 1976) covering in extensive depth the period from November 1973 until President Nixon resigned in August 1974. 1 are
The Choice—about Bill Clinton's re-election bid; (1996) ISBN 0-684-81308-4
Maestro—about Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan; (2000) ISBN 0-7432-0412-3
The Secret Man—about Mark Felt's disclosure after more than 30 years that he was Deep Throat.

While a young reporter for The Washington Post in 1972 Woodward was teamed up with Carl Bernstein; the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. Robert Upshur “Bob” Woodward (born March 26 1943) is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author.

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