The Far Enemy

"This book by Gerges is important because I don’t think many people really understand that much of this turmoil began in ferment against the local governments and that it was the persistence of American military support for governments in power that led Al-Qaeda to turn against America. And of course one of the key people in this was Osama bin Laden, who, according to what Gerges and others say, was heavily influenced by the Egyptians. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter It was Ayman al-Zawahiri who persuaded Osama bin Laden that one had to go after the “far enemy” first. That can be disputed but still it opens a very important insight into how what started as a struggle against the local governments became a struggle against the West, and the United States in particular."