Most of the juicy bits seem to be about these personality clashes, and in that context, it’s worth digging up this old gem from Joan Didion’s 1996 review of Woodward’s work:

…Mr. Woodward describes his role, “to sit with many of the candidates and key players and ask about the questions of the day as the campaign unfolded.” What seems most remarkable in this new Woodward book is exactly what seemed remarkable in the previous Woodward books, each of which was presented as the insiders’ inside story and each of which went on to become a number-one bestseller: these are books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent. The author himself disclaims “the perspective of history.” His preferred approach has been one in which “issues could be examined before the possible outcome or meaning was at all clear or the possible consequences were weighed.”

Woodward, of course, does care about writing about issues that in his judgment will one day have historical import. As he told Charlie Rose in 2009:

The first nine months of the Bush administration I spent working on Bush’s tax cut, thinking that would be the center of gravity. Of course, I was dead wrong, and I still have boxes of interviews and notes if you run into anyone who wants to write a book about the Bush tax cut. It’s there. I worked for months on it thinking it was important. Of course, it’s important but compared to 9/11, which still defines our times, and the problems Obama has, the Bush tax cuts is probably not going to go in the history books.

Actually, with the “the perspective of history” (and the current debate on extending those tax cuts), those boxes of notes might be interesting. Any takers?

But Gibbs also made all of his comments in the context of the administration’s current counterinsurgency strategy. Some observers have speculated that the prospect of cashiering McChrystal is an opportunity for overhauling the strategy. Andrew Exum, a former adviser to McChrystal on Afghanistan who also served under the general, noted, “If you feel the strategy in Afghanistan needs a radical change, this would be the ideal time to change commanders.” That wasn’t where Gibbs’ head was at in his press briefing this afternoon.

“Personality disagreements aside, we’re here to implement a new strategy” for the nine-year Afghanistan war, Gibbs repeatedly said. He emphasized that all senior officials and military leaders, including McChrystal, had an opportunity to contribute during the fall debate over strategy, and all left those meetings pledging to support and implement that agenda. “Over the course of many weeks, the strategy was refined and developed, which every member of the team pledged to implement, and agreed with that strategy,” Gibbs said. “That’s what we want everybody from the ambassador from the combatant commander to anybody else involved with this to focus on.”

None of that sounds like a White House that’s ready to scrap its counterinsurgency strategy in the year to go before it begins to shift to a heavier focus on training Afghan forces and withdrawing troops. But McChrystal will have to reiterate his commitment tomorrow to working with the team that, in many ways, signed onto a strategy he himself largely convinced the president to support. “This is bigger than anybody on the military or the civilian side,” Gibbs said. Translation: McChrystal can go or stay, but the strategy has been set. And that may be the greatest irony of the entire McChrystal imbroglio.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal (Zuma)

A not-yet-released Rolling Stone magazine profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, quotes him and anonymous aides expressing anger, disrespect and derision at various members of the Obama administration, including Vice President Biden, Amb. Richard Holbrooke and Amb. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to the country.

The profile itself isn’t out yet. But reporters have gotten its flavor. “Who’s that?” McChrystal is quoted as saying about Biden, who in 2009 didn’t favor McChrystal’s preferred strategy in Afghanistan. Eikenberry, a retired war commander himself, authored cables to Washington questioning whether counterinsurgency can work in the nine-year war and whether President Hamid Karzai is a reliable ally. McChrystal apparently told the magazine, “Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so.’”

Last night, McChrystal released a statement to reporters taking responsibility for the profile, while not addressing any specific quotes attributed to him. Here it is in full:

“I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard. I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome.”

Update: According to the AP, McChrystal is getting summoned to Washington to be called on the carpet. In the White House, many senior officials still have a bad taste in their mouths over McChrystal’s leaked strategy review — McChrystal and his staff did not leak it — which they considered part of a pressure campaign to get Obama to escalate the Afghanistan. Obama did, and McChrystal testified to Congress in December that he fully endorsed and will faithfully execute the administration’s strategy.

It’s perilous for Obama to fire McChrystal now, with only a year remaining before the July 2011 date for beginning to transition to Afghan security responsibilities and consequently beginning troop reductions. But it’s going to be on McChrystal to repair the trust with the White House this profile has clearly damaged. If McChrystal keeps his command, that Rolling Stone reporter got the general’s last big interview.

More on this story:

‘Angry’ President Will Meet McChrystal Tomorrow, but Strategy Likely to Remain the Same

Gates Gives No Hints to McChrystal’s Fate

Kerry on McChrystal: Stop the ‘Feeding Frenzy’

Biden Probably Wants to Renew His Rolling Stone Subscription

The peace-building think tank wants to explore the lessons of SMS-based relief campaigns for victims of the Haiti earthquake and Pakistani military push against Taliban insurgents for the Afghanistan conflict. Both were heavily promoted by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and both appeared to have some ameliorative impact, though precisely how much is unclear. Richard Holbrooke, the administration special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is going to give the keynote at the panel, and in attendance will be his two key communications aides, Vikram Singh and Ashley Bommer.

The panel doesn’t appear to think texting is a substitute for a political or economic or development strategy. But here’s what it’s looking at:

• Improving governance –  rule of law and anti-corruption
• Countering extremism – media development and counter-insurgency
• Delivery of essential services – education, health, agricultural development, commerce

Text Taliban geospatial coordinates to ISAF headquarters.

“Two things are happening,” said Richard Fontaine, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain. “One, there wasn’t much payoff from the earlier approach. And second, it’s sunk in, after the Afghan elections last year, that this is the guy who’s going to be here for four years and change, so we better get along with him because we don’t have an alternative.”

But there was a reason why the Obama administration kept the relationship with Karzai frosty: he’s an unreliable partner, as expressed by his election theft. Accordingly, the administration drew two conclusions. First, it needed to build deeper relationships with Afghan government institutions and focus its support to non-military institutions on what it likes to call “sub-national” efforts at the provincial and district levels — that is, further from Karzai’s control. Second, it needed to show Karzai that U.S. support to his priorities was conditioned on his performance. “The days of providing a blank check are over,” Obama said in his West Point speech announcing the “extended surge.”

At least part of the first lesson is still in evidence by Karzai’s humongous entourage of cabinet ministers, who’ve traveled to Washington to meet with their American opposites. The second lesson is in doubt. Not everyone in the administration appears comfortable with its prospective abridgement. Going forward, the key question isn’t whether Karzai feels adequately loved by President Obama, as he was by President Bush. It’s whether he feels like he can resist Obama’s pressure to deliver on capable governance and get rewarded with a fancy week-long celebration in Washington.

If anything, it mirrors a decision Obama made last year on Pakistan, when he instructed his administration to stop its public pressure in order to forge a more productive relationship.

Ruggiero is a well-respected career civil servant who’s worked with the Department of Commerce as well as the State Department, where he’s most recently been at the top of the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs before heading to Afghanistan last summer. As part of the “civilian uplift,” Ruggiero has established and coordinated small teams of civilians in Helmand and Kandahar provinces known as District Support Teams to embed with NATO military battalions in order to assist Afghan officials with delivering services for local citizens in order to reduce the demand for the Taliban’s shadow governance.  While the hundred-plus civilians on Ruggiero’s team is up from fewer than ten civilians in southern Afghanistan before Ruggiero arrived, the effort still dwarfed by the thousands of U.S. Marines, soldiers, NATO troops and still-arriving U.S. forces as part of the “extended surge” focusing on the south of the country.

Still, Ruggiero should be able to provide Holbrooke, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama with ground-truth visibility on the difficulties and possibilities of fostering credible, deliverable governance for Afghans in the south, a centerpiece of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. That’s especially salient since Clinton indicated today at a NATO conference that the civilian presence in Afghanistan will outlast the U.S. military’s post-2011 drawdown.

Later yesterday, Holbrooke got in a shot at the United Nations’ former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide. Eide’s old deputy, the former U.S. ambassador (and Holbrooke ally) Peter Galbraith, accused Eide of placing the U.N. mission in a quiescent position when Karzai committed widespread fraud in last year’s presidential election. After a screening of a forthcoming HBO documentary about Holbrooke’s friend Sergio Vieira de Mello, the revered U.N. diplomat killed in Iraq in 2003, Holbrooke told a panel discussion that he had recently come from a Kabul meeting that included Staffan de Mistura, Eide’s successor, whom he called “a substantial step forward” from his predecessor.

What made it different today, of course, was that we were in Kabul and the most senior members of the government were participating. While President Karzai’s participation was relatively brief, the fact that he visited us at all, the fact that he heard what we were doing, the fact that he endorsed it in front of his ministers carries great importance to us, and we greatly appreciate the fact that he took time to do it.

And on and on in that vein during the entire press conference. It’s a pretty cost-free way to lower the temperature of U.S.-Karzai relations. Last week, Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney chided the Obama administration for pressuring Karzai. Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security had a choice response to that.

“He has developed a complete theory of American power,” said an Afghan who attended the lunch and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “He believes that America is trying to dominate the region, and that he is the only one who can stand up to them.”

And that’s why Obama set a July 2011 date to begin troop reductions?

Mr. Karzai said that, left alone, he could strike a deal with the Taliban, but that the United States refuses to allow him. The American goal, he said, was to keep the Afghan conflict going, and thereby allow American troops to stay in the country.

And that’s why Amb. Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, supported removing the names of Taliban figures from a United Nations terrorism list, which frees them to travel for peace talks? Or why Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, declares himself agnostic about the political backgrounds of whomever joins the Afghan government in the future? To the point where women’s-rights and human-rights activists fear that reconciliation between Karzai and the Taliban will be a massive, U.S.-supported sellout?

All of Karzai’s criticisms run in one direction: to give himself the maximum freedom of political maneuver, while soon-to-be 140,000 foreign troops and billions of dollars in foreign aid essentially backstop his government. It’s his right as a politician, but to some degree, the volume of Karzai’s complaints about being personally slighted serve as a barometric indicator that the U.S., the U.N. and NATO are broadening their commitment in Afghanistan to be about something more sustainable than a relationship between leaders.

[A]s expected, a diplomatic “We’re Just Not That Into You” move on the civilian nuclear deal and drone strike technology, but a thumbs up on the substantial topics, i.e. development. That is certainly a plus, depending on how well it’s implemented and allocated.

She points to this Washington Post wrap-up as well for the goods:

Most of the agreements announced after the one-day meeting had been decided earlier, including disbursement of a new $7.5-billion, five-year U.S. aid package for Pakistan’s energy, water, agricultural and education sectors. Long-standing Pakistani complaints about nearly $1 billion in promised but unpaid U.S. reimbursements for Pakistan’s counterinsurgency operations had been largely resolved, with the remaining money to be paid by the end of June. The administration said that it would improve on what Pakistan has described as slow delivery of military hardware and that it would keep trying to facilitate better Pakistani access to U.S. markets and a transit trade arrangement with Afghanistan.

All of which is in keeping with Special Representative Richard Holbrooke’s perspective that Pakistan needs to feel like the U.S. is willing to assist Pakistan as it attends to its national and domestic interests if Washington wants to see more robust counterterrorism results.