The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East

Bin Laden wasn’t the only one thinking along such lines. In 1990 Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, invaded Kuwait. It was a bold and sudden attack. Within four hours of crossing the border, the Iraqi army had reached Kuwait’s capital, attacked the emir’s palace, and set it aflame. Days later, Hussein annexed Kuwait. This gave him control of two

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In 1978, communists in Afghanistan staged a coup, deposing the elected president. Not only was this a revolution led by infidels, it gave the Soviet Union a foothold in the region as it sent troops to support the faltering new regime. Moscow intended this as temporary. “It’ll be over in three to four weeks,” predicted Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet le

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For Osama bin Laden, the bases weren’t only an affront to religion, they were maddening hypocrisy. At the behest of his government, Bin Laden had risked his life to oust infidels from the Muslim country of Afghanistan. And now that same government was inviting nonbelievers in? To the land of Mecca and Medina? “It is unconscionable to let the countr

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These were choppy political waters, but Mohamed bin Laden surfed them adroitly. He became the Saudi government’s preferred builder. At the same time, he did so much business with the United States that he retained an agent in New York. He built classified projects for the U.S. military, including air bases and garrisons around Saudi Arabia’s wester

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