The Looming Tower

With the publication of the Baker Report yesterday, it seems important for all Americans to reflect a bit on how we got to where we are in relation to Iraq and Al Quaida. In my opinion there is no better starting point than the book by Lawrence Wright who is a writer for the New Yorker.

Wright starts with a little known (at least in the US) Egyptian named Sayyid Quotb. (Pictured here) Quotb was a teacher and intellectual in Egypt, born in 1906. Quotb came to the US in the 1950s and through his encounters with Americans across the country become a bit more devout in his religious practice. Wright explains how his background and some key incidents during his visit seem to have colored his view of the US. He returned to Egypt and for the next decade, before he was executed by the Egyptian government, pressed for the creation of an Islamic republic. The leaders of Egypt alternatively used and imprisioned Quotb. A good deal of his philosophical commentary seems to have been influenced, at least in part, by his visit to America. Quotb seems to have looked at the relative backwardness of his country, and coupled that with a general level of embarrassment at the lifestyles of the US (even in the 1950s) that led him to a series of books which argued that the way to assure the best life was not to catch up to the society of the US but to return to the glory days of Islam.

Wright's story then recounts the founding of Al Quaida and the other terrorist organizations. It is a complicated story with intrigues and jealousies. But he also spends a lot of time on some of the key figures in American intelligence. If the story of the development of terrorist networks is complicated, the one about how we dealt with the issues is both complicated and disappointing. While some partisans have tried to pin the failures on one person or administration, Wright's detail suggests there is plenty of blame to go around for a long time. He seems to suggest that one of the real problems we faced was a form of bureaucratic intertia. We had been used to working with nations and with countries where we had some facility in language. In this instance, the organizations we relied on had neither enough people who understood the cultures of the region nor spoke the language. At the same time, we were set up, in fine Maginot style, to respond to a threat that was not there.

What is also most interesting about his book is that he understands that just because the groups around Al Quaida have what many Americans would see as a puritanical approach to life, does not mean that they are devoid of understanding of how to use technology. Indeed, many of the key figures are(were) well educated.

At some point I will have more commentary on the Baker report. I will admit I am a skeptic about these kinds of things. None of the people on the Commission have any special expertise in the area and more importantly many of them are a part of the establishment that so misjudged the change in circumstances for the US in the world after the fall of Communism. So one wonders what these people will have to say that is on point. Indeed, according to the NYT this morning, many of the military recommendations run counter to the thoughts of the Commission's own military advisors. Indeed one advisor commented in the Times article “They are still fighting their last war, the high-intensity Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a war with clear battle lines fought with mass military formations, and one in which civilians on the battlefield were a nuisance, and not a center of gravity,” he wrote. The Iraqi military, he added, “must learn to fight using strategies and tactics far different than those used in the past.” Most telling in the NYT article is the last paragraph "A preface to the report by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, the group’s chairmen, said that one aim of the report was 'to move our country toward consensus.' The study contains all the ingredients of a Washington compromise. What is less apparent is a detailed and convincing military strategy that is likely to work in Iraq."

The Looming Tower is at Amazon in both book form and as an unabridged audio book. For every person who wants to try to unravel this puzzle, the book can help. It will not be of comfort to anyone who either wants to condemn or support unconditionally the positions of a particular US administration.