Lawrence Wright's "The Looming Tower": The Making of 9/11

Al-Qaida’s theology is no less crude, and overwhelmingly rejected by mainstream Islam’s clerics — beginning with al-Qaida’s cult of violence and death.

But the administration bought the delusion whole, giving Osama the disproportionate fight he wants with the Great Satan and elevating him to an enemy status he could never manage on his own. Give him enough rope, and Osama will lynch himself in Arab and Muslim eyes. Instead, the Bush doctrine gives him ammunition and caps off the calculated paranoia by shackling America’s liberties in the name of fear.

Wright's book should be an indispensable companion to anyone trying to understand the paradox at the heart of al-Qaeda's strategy, and the paradox of the war on terror: Al-Qaeda is serious but extremely limited both by the means it has chosen to execute its agenda, and the absence of an overriding, coherent ideology to go along with its creed of violence.

Similarly, the war on terror as it's being fought by the West feeds into al-Qaeda's agenda by playing up the terrorist organization into a force far greater than it can be, let alone than it deserves to be. Demonizing it only gives it more credence while hiding its true, hollow nature. Understanding it is the first step to disarming it. That understanding is what Wright's book achieves.