All the Presidents' Wars: Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror by Peter Bergen

From the New York Times best-selling author, a tragic history of the United States’ war on terror across four presidential administrations.

2026 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11, the most devastating attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. The resulting war on terror cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives. And yet despite its blunders, this campaign has kept America safe from foreign attack. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, All the Presidents’ Wars focuses on critical decisions of four successive presidents―Bush, Obama, Trump, and Biden. One of the few journalists to interview Osama bin Laden and have unparalleled access to the US intelligence community, Peter Bergen explores the birth of ISIS; the many terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups; the rise of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, largely responsible for the Iraqi civil war in the mid-2000s; the ascendence of Iran; and the resurrection of Afghanistan’s Taliban. All the Presidents’ Wars is essential reading for understanding the devastating history of America’s war on terror and for avoiding the mistakes of the past.