Veteran journalist and national security expert Peter Bergen reviews America’s wars since the September 11 attacks in his book “The Wars of the Presidents: 25 Years of the American War on Terror,” examining both the achievements and failures of successive administrations.
Bergen highlights US successes in dismantling al-Qaeda’s original safe haven, killing Osama bin Laden and defeating ISIS’s territorial caliphate. However, he argues that military victories were often not matched by a clear political strategy for what should follow.
The book describes the Iraq invasion as George W. Bush’s biggest mistake, noting that Saddam Hussein had no operational alliance with al-Qaeda. Bergen also argues that dissolving the Iraqi army and banning the Baath Party helped create conditions that contributed to the rise of extremist groups, including ISIS.
Bergen further examines the policies of Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden in Afghanistan and the Middle East, including the Doha agreement, the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and Trump’s second-term war with Iran.
The author’s central argument is that military force must be accompanied by a clear political endgame, warning that “destruction is an activity, not a strategy.”
