First: The title has a typo. It should be titled ‘Obama’s war’ as there is no reporting on decisions related to Iraq.
The Good:
Woodward has remarkable access. He paints a picture that makes sense, and has more anecdotes about the top levels of government than anyone. Woodward shows how decision making happens, and that White House politics is really a permutation of regular office politics (both in Republican and Democrat administrations). He keeps good track of all the actors rather than relying too extensively on a few, and is remarkably good at maintaining as neutral tone as possible- neither praising nor condemning the administration or its members.
The Bad:
There are no conclusions. There is no unified narrative. The book gives a very filtered look at what happened on the ground in Afghanistan, in the State Department, or with the intelligence operations. It’s like a very very long ‘meeting minutes’
But nobody else makes ‘meeting minutes’ so compelling, and Woodward is still the only game in town.