The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda

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More About This Book

Overview

TEN YEARS HAVE PASSED since the shocking attacks on the World Trade Center, and after seven years of conflict, the last U.S. combat troops left Iraq—only to move into Afghanistan, where the ten-year-old fight continues: the war on terror rages with no clear end in sight. In The Longest War Peter Bergen offers a comprehensive history of this war and its evolution, from the strategies devised in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to the fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and beyond. Unlike any other book on this subject, here Bergen tells the story of this shifting war’s failures and successes from the perspectives of both the United States and al-Qaeda and its allies. He goes into the homes of al-Qaeda members, rooting into the source of their devotion to terrorist causes, and spends time in the offices of the major players shaping the U.S. strategic efforts in the region. At a time when many are frustrated or fatigued with what has become an enduring multigenerational conflict, this book will provide an illuminating narrative that not only traces the arc of the fight but projects its likely future.

Weaving together internal documents from al-Qaeda and the U.S. offices of counterterrorism, first-person interviews with top-level jihadists and senior Washington officials, along with his own experiences on the ground in the Middle East, Bergen balances the accounts of each side, revealing how al-Qaeda has evolved since 9/11 and the specific ways the U.S. government has responded in the ongoing fight.

Bergen also uncovers the strategic errors committed on both sides—the way that al-Qaeda’s bold attack on the United States on 9/11 actually undermined its objective and caused the collapse of the Taliban and the destruction of the organization’s safe haven in Afghanistan, and how al-Qaeda is actually losing the war of ideas in the Muslim world. The book also shows how the United States undermined its moral position in this war with its actions at Guantánamo and coercive interrogations—including the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar, who was kidnapped by the CIA in Milan in 2003 and was tortured for four years in Egyptian prisons; his case represents the first and only time that CIA officials have been charged and convicted of the crime of kidnapping.

In examining other strategic blunders the United States has committed, Bergen offers a scathing critique of the Clinton and Bush administrations’ inability to accurately assess and counter the al-Qaeda threat, Bush’s deeply misguided reasons for invading Iraq—including the story of how the invasion was launched based, in part, on the views of an obscure academic who put forth theories about Iraq’s involvement with al-Qaeda—and the Obama administration’s efforts in Afghanistan.

At a critical moment in world history The Longest War provides the definitive account of the ongoing battle against terror.

Winner of the 2011 Washington Institute Book Prize Gold Medal

Editorial Reviews

Michiko Kakutani
For readers interested in a highly informed, wide-angled, single-volume briefing on the war on terror so far, The Longest War is clearly that essential book…Although some of Mr. Bergen's conclusions are bound to be controversial, the lucidity, knowledge and carefully reasoned logic of his arguments lend his assessments credibility and weight, even when he is challenging conventional wisdom.
—The New York Times
Thomas E. Ricks
For years, I tried to read every new novel about how 9/11 affected our lives. Some were very thoughtful, but I always came away unsatisfied, feeling that the authors had worked hard but had somehow fallen short. As I read the stunning first section of Peter L. Bergen's new book on the war between the United States and Al Qaeda, I realized I had been looking in the wrong genre. None of the novels were as effective or moving as The Longest War, which is a history of our time…one of the most important accounts on the subject to appear in years. But be warned: You will read it and weep.
—The New York Times Book Review
More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews
Publishers Weekly
Bergen (The Osama bin Laden I Know), CNN's national security analyst, revisits the personality and career of the al-Qaeda leader and his immediate circle, while delving into the conflict between al-Qaeda and associates and the U.S. and its coalition. Much of the narrative conforms in outline to other recent books on the conflict, but Bergen adds much detail and contour to his analyses. He finds serious miscalculations on the part of the terrorist organization, and sees the "surge" in Iraq signaling a larger decline in al-Qaeda's potency. At the same time, he argues that the widespread backlash in the Middle East against the September 11 attacks confirms it is mainstream Islam that poses the greatest "ideological threat" to al-Qaeda. The U.S., meanwhile, has let incompetence and a misguided obsession with Iraq undermine its efforts to extinguish al-Qaeda and the enduring influence of bin Laden, who, Bergen argues, is still alive. Drawing on vast firsthand knowledge of the region and mining a huge stock of primary and secondary material, including his own interviews with combatants, the book's depth of detail and breadth of insight make it one of the more useful analyses of the ongoing conflict. (Jan.)
Library Journal
CNN reporter Bergen (The Osama bin Laden I Know), one of the foremost Western experts on al-Qaeda, presents a compelling narrative of the history of the battle against al-Qaeda since 9/11. Relying on a variety of sources, including the jihadists and U.S. government documents, interviews with al-Qaeda operatives and senior Washington officials, and his own extensive field experience, the author describes success and failure in the "war on terror." He divides his book into two major parts. Part 1 describes al-Qaeda's misunderstanding of the West and its capabilities and Washington's policy in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Part 2, Bergen explains the lessons that the U.S. military learned from its mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq and how it later used its experience in these two countries to take the initiative from al-Qaeda and its affiliates. However, as General Sir David Richards, the head of Britain's armed forces, recently noted, al-Qaeda cannot be beaten, but it can be contained and weakened. VERDICT This highly readable book is suitable for specialists and nonspecialists alike.—Nader Entessar, Univ. of South Alabama, Mobile
Kirkus Reviews

A revelatory, pull-no-punches history of the War on Terror, from before 9/11 to the present day.

CNN national security analyst and journalist Bergen (The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader, 2006, etc.) takes a critical look at all phases of the conflict between the West and al-Qaeda. Drawing on an impressive range of both Western and Islamic sources, the author examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the jihadist movement, most importantly as exemplified by Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden's charismatic appeal arises in part from conscious emulation of the prophet Muhammad, writes Bergen, even as early as his joining the fight to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan. In particular, his personal asceticism, maintained in spite of his great wealth, gives him credibility with the disaffected of the Islamic world and makes it easy for him to recruit candidates for suicide missions. But Bergen argues that bin Laden's greatest triumph was also the ruination of al-Qaeda, making him the target of the most relentless manhunt of our time and forcing his followers to the margins of civilized society. At the same time, the Bush administration's response to 9/11 was deeply flawed; the failure to close the trap on bin Laden at Tora Bora left him and his organization free to continue the fight against the West. Then, the Iraq war, against a country that had no part in 9/11, cost the United States an unprecedented level of international support, especially as the Bush administration abandoned the Geneva Convention in its treatment of prisoners. Bergen looks at the lessons learned on both sides of the war, notably the U.S. military's rediscovery of one of the lessons of Vietnam: Small units working closely with the indigenous population can achieve what large concentrations of conventional force cannot. The author concludes that, simply by surviving so long, bin Laden has created a movement likely to carry on his brand of anti-Americanism for the foreseeable future.

One of the deepest and most disturbing investigations of one of the defining issues of our era.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780743278942
  • Publisher: Free Press
  • Publication date: 6/28/2011
  • Edition description: Simon & Schuster
  • Pages: 496
  • Sales rank: 160,105
  • Product dimensions: 5.50 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Peter Bergen is the author of Holy War, Inc., which has been translated into 18 languages, and The Osama Bin Laden I Know. They were both named among the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post and documentaries based on teh books were both nominated for Emmys. Bergen is CNN's national security analyst and a fellow at the New America Foundation and New York University's Center on Law & Security. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic and has worked as a correspondent for National Geographic television, Discovery, and CNN. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Time, Vanity Fair, among other publications.

Customer Reviews

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See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 36 Customer Reviews

  • Posted February 7, 2011

    Excellent Work

    There is a little-known sidebar story to the broader saga of America's encounter with violent Jihadism that runs as follows: the dogged, thorough, insightful efforts of a coterie of journalists has been of enormous benefit to thousands of hundreds of people whose work puts them in the anti-terrorism business. These journalists have been and continue to be a valuable source of on-the-ground intelligence and independent analysis.

    None has had greater influence than Peter Bergen.The Longest War, the latest in Mr. Bergen's long list of stellar books and articles, is certain to be a work widely consulted and relied upon.

    He divides his book into two sections, the first of which he labels Hubris. Mr. Bergen was one of the very few prior to 9/11 to recognize the danger Usama bin Laden and al-Qaeda posed for the U.S. Like so many of those who were voices in the wilderness, he is sharply critical of what he sees as a lack of government attentiveness to the al-Qaeda threat circa late summer 2001. Unlike those other voices, Mr. Bergen does not explicitly state that greater attentiveness to the threat might well have averted 9/11. But the contours of the implication are fairly easy to make out.

    It is an interesting thing to speculate about, not in order to affix blame but to acquire a better understanding of our anti-terrorism efforts. In many respects, the problem pre-9/11 is the same problem we face today - having to protect a vast number of targets from people who are attempting to operate beneath radar screens. The "we" here is not just the Federal government and foreign allied governments but local law enforcement entities and the general public. To go back over the chain of events that led up to the plane hijackings, it is clear that many, many people saw pieces of the unfolding plot and that almost no one recognized what they were seeing as anything worthy of greater scrutiny, much less as a piece of a terrorist plot. This was not so much due to lack of attentiveness as it was lack of experience with covert terrorist operations. To put this another way, before dots can be connected they must first be recognized. And this ability to do so is heavily dependent on experience. Even today with plenty of experience under our belts, identifying dots remains a challenge. Witness the Underwear Bomber of December, 2010. In any case, I am skeptical that greater awareness on the part of the Bush Administration would have made a difference.

    Mr. Bergen reserves his harshest criticism in the Hubris section for Usama bin Laden, who thought that attacking would, at worst, lead to a few bombs being dropped on Afghanistan before the Americans would fold their tents and leave the Middle East. Once this happened, he believed, the governments of that region would collapse and a new era of Islamic-based rule woudl emerge.

    As Mr. Bergen notes, there has never been a greater U.S. presence in the Middle East, the Taliban government was dissolved, and opinion in the Muslim world holds bin Laden in low regard. As for regimes collapsing, that may be now be taking place in Egypt but it has nothing to do with 9/11 and Ayman al-Zawahiri can only watch events in his homeland from his hiding spot in Pakistan.

    There is much more to say but no room to say it. Suffice it that anyone wanting a concise but comprehensive account of our battle with al-Qaeda need look no further than The Longest War. It is unquestionably the best a

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 19, 2011

    Exceptional view of Middle Eastern conflict and its Terrorist

    Peter Bergen has done an excellent job of explaining the Iranian an Afganistan conflicts we are up to our necks in. He gives an unbiased perspective of America's response and strategies on the fight against terrorism in the Middle East. A must read for anyone who thinks they know the truth about Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan and their relationship with the al-Queda, the Taliban and the jihadist movement. It is also an excellent assessment and timeline of the "war on terror" since 9/11. I really enjoyed the info on Osama bin Laden and the other figures in the jihadist movement around the world. Loved it, very insightful, "RolloRT"

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted February 2, 2012

    Very Spotty. Not Recommended.

    Interesting parts about the war; however, much of it is a highly opinionated editorial on politics that is a constant reminder to question the author's objectivity.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted October 5, 2011

    Educating

    As a OIF war veteran I found this book to be very informative and eye opening. A definite read.

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