By Based on hundreds of interviews, focuses on critical decisions of four successive presidents―Bush, Obama, Biden, and Trump―and their global consequences. One of the few journalists to interview Osama bin Laden and have unparalleled access to the US intelligence community, the author covers the history that might have been avoided: the many terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups around the world; the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq, largely responsible for the Iraqi civil war in the mid-2000s; the birth of ISIS; the resurrection of Afghanistan’s Taliban; and the current war with Iran. From the failure to capture and the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden to the disastrous rise of sectarian violence in the Middle East, traces the profound ramifications of this epoch in American life. Also explores the innovations and unintended consequences of each presidency’s military and political decisions, including debates over military intervention and withdrawal; the tactics of special operations units, armed drones, and armies of counterterrorism partners; and whether the idea of war ever properly captured the defining conflict of recent American foreign policy. Read more.