Book Review: The Looming Tower
It has been over a decade since The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 was published by Lawrence Wright. Back in 2006 George W Bush was still president, ISIS had not arrived in earnest and the civil war in Syria was still 5 years away. Then the aftershock from September 11 was still being felt, with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq drawing international ire and a USA was still struggling to work out exactly what it meant domestically. Perhaps they still are.
As a study on September 11, The Looming Tower is unparalleled, reverse engineering the birth of modern Islamic fundamentalism through a mosaic of historical personal histories. It’s an effective method, as looking at the ideas themselves would have marooned Wright in a quagmire of lengthy theoretical discursions and the individuals are far too compelling for that.
Wright’s timeline noteworthy too - beginning immediately post second world war. The historical context in which Islamic fundamentalism began is vital to its character. With the creation of modern Israel from the ashes of the holocaust, the decline of imperialism and the transfer of Nazi antisemitism through Nazi agents stationed in Cairo are all integral pre-conditions, yet it is a steady stream of zealots depicted in great detail and depth by Wright that gave the movement its drive.
We find out in The Looming Tower exactly how theological gymnastics were needed to transfer the word of the Qu'ran into the most hateful, death-loving strain of Islam, adhered to by Al Qaeda and Bin Laden. These gymnastics were even able to directly contradict the repeated, literal word of Muhammed, enabling the Jihadis to murder innocents, other muslims and commit suicide in the process. Wright discovers a different motive to adhering to the word of God - a deep philosophical loathing of modernity.
The most interesting parts of The Looming Tower’s first half are when various zealotry Islamic scholars spend time in the post-war USA. It begins with its progenitor, the Islamic scholar, Egyptian Syed Qutb. We follow Qutb as he spends two years in the USA, studying the educational system at Wilson Teachers’ College in the small city of Greenly Colorado. Wright conveys the turmoil between a student of Islam from the ancient lands of Egypt and bopping, cherry cola 50s. Qutb clearly hates modernity but most of all he hates and fears the modern, sexually liberated American woman. Wilson Teacher’s College had a higher proportion of women than average, and so, Qutb is permanently outraged and “tempted” in a place where women are outspoken and confident beyond what was normal even for the USA. Wright explains how this outrage seems to be primary motivation for the scholar to spill ink to manoeuvre Arabic Islam, from its natural adversaries - the colonial European powers or the atheist Soviet Union - instead positioning it into direct conflict with this decadent American brand of modernity.
This is a recurring theme - Islamic fundamentalism was born from outrage at modern sexuality. It seems to require a great deal of theological energy to maintain a collision course with the US to justify continual escalation in terror attacks, attacks that involve killing innocents, killing fellow muslims and suicide all religiously forbidden. It’s only by detailing the inner and insulated world of leaders of jihad that Wright can illuminate their drive.
The second half of The Looming Tower details Al Qaeda’s foundation after the Cold War. Wright refocuses from the foundational ideas to the practical business of conducting Jihad in a world of American hegemony. He details the internecine rivalry within the Islamic fundamentalist world and it is fascinating to see the various Jihadi brands jostle for power.
At this point Wright opens up a parallel stream of American FBI and CIA agents operating within their respective bureaucracies geared to smother any individual brilliance. If there is humour to be found in the Looming Tower - it is just how hard boiled FBI agent John O'Neil or CIA Agent Michael F. Scheuer are. Some of the dialogue seems lifted right from an episode of The Wire - with agents demoted to desk duties after telling their superior to shove something up their arse. Sometimes reality is too cliched for fiction.
O'Neil in particular is a fascinating character, representing the tragic core of The Looming Tower (outside it’s apotheosis). A brilliant, relentless, deeply flawed agent that worked ceaselessly developing international contacts and was the only government employee that truly foresaw September 11. The tragedy lies in how O'Neil was hampered and blocked at every stage within the FBI’s bureaucracy until he retired to become, of all things, a security agent in the World Trade Centre on August 23.
Wright does not have to work his material very hard, although the book is impeccably researched, arranged and paced. We all know how it ends, yet by the time the towers fall, the true horror of the event, the darkness of its motivation, and the inability of US intelligence to protect itself will stay with readers for a long time to come. It’s particularly disquieting to see how the present turmoil with an American state eating itself, undermining its own foundation is terrorism’s grand design. The Looming Tower continues to be relevant because the strains of ideas it explores are still a terrible force within our current landscape both now and into the foreseeable future.