The Age of Sacred Terror/The High Cost of Peace: How Washington's Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism

The Age of Sacred Terror, by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon. New York: Random House, 2002. xiii + 446 pages. Gloss. to 449. Notes to p. 472. Index to p. 490. $25.95.

The High Cost of Peace: How Washington's Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable to Terrorism, by Yossef Bodansky. Roseville, CA: Prima Publishing, 2002. xvii + 569 pages. Appends. to 578. Gloss. to 587. Note on Sources to 596. Bibl. to 619. Index to 652. $27.95.

Reviewed by Duncan Clarke

These two books share some commonalities: a focus on radical Islam, terrorism, the Middle East, and US foreign policy. Both conclude that, ultimately, regional democratization is imperative, however hazardous that may be for the Islamic world and the United States. Beyond this, the books are from different planets. One is an insightful insider account of pre-9/11 (September 11, 2001) US decisionmaking for counterterrorism. The other is a screed.

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon were terrorism specialists with Richard Clarke on the Clinton administration's National Security Council (NSC) staff. The Age of Sacred Terror examines the US response to Muslim terrorists from the killing of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 through 9/11. It also traces the evolution of a strain of Islam that places holy war at the center of Islamic life - from ibn Taymiyaa in the 13th century through the Wahhabis and the Muslim Brotherhood, to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

The book's real value, and why it deserves to be read, is its informed, credible treatment of US policy and, especially, policy processes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is portrayed as even more bumbling than what was revealed after 9/11. Not only did it withhold vital information from the White House, but Benjamin and Simon assert that the Bureau was less concerned with al-Qaeda than was any other unit of the US government. The FBI was a "surly colossus," a "disorganized jumble of competing . . . power centers" (p. 300). Likewise, terrorism was of tertiary concern to the US military, and the authors find that the Department of Justice (very much unlike the present) did not encourage close pursuit of potential domestic threats because Arab-American complaints induced an unhealthy "political correctness" (p. 306).

Despite this, these Clinton NSC staffers...