FROM INSIDE OBAMA'S SITUATION ROOM . . . THE CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE COVERT WAR AGAINST IRAN, THE STRUGGLES TO DEAL WITH A RECALCITRANT PAKISTAN AND ITS FAST-GROWING NUCLEAR ARSENAL, THE TENSIONS WITH THE AMERICAN MILITARY OVER AFGHANISTAN AND WITH ALLIES SWEPT UP IN THE CHAOS OF THE ARAB SPRINGThree and a half years ago, David Sanger's bookThe Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Powerdescribed how a new American president came to office with the world on fire. Now, just as the 2012 presidential election battle begins, Sanger follows up with an eye-opening, news-packed account of how Obama has dealt with those challenges, relying on innovative weapons and reconfigured tools of American power to try to manage a series of new threats. Sanger describes how Obama's early idealism about fighting ';a war of necessity' in Afghanistan quickly turned to fatigue and frustration, how the early hopes that the Arab Spring would bring about a democratic awakening slipped away, and how an effort to re-establish American power in the Pacific set the stage for a new era of tensions with the world's great rising power, China.As the world seeks to understand the contours of the Obama Doctrine,Confront and Concealis a fascinating, unflinching account of these complex years, in which the president and his administration have found themselves struggling to stay ahead in a world where power is diffuse and America's ability to exert control grows ever more elusive.