The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (review)

Ron Suskind's The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism is an unusual book, combining anecdote, biography, first-person narrative, and the accounts of numerous named and unnamed sources in a matrix that frequently reads more like a novel or a movie script than a serious critique of government policy. The jacket blurb describes the book as a "strikingly original portrait of the post-9/11 world," which is probably as good a way to describe it as any other. It begins with a number of sketches and minibiographies intended to illustrate how the supercharged political environment of the post-9/11 United States has impacted the lives of a diverse group of individuals who either inadvertently or deliberately have become part of the so-called global war on terrorism.

The book's subtitle refers to hope in the "age of extremism." It is based on the premise that understanding and countering the international terrorist threat is critical because of the danger that a militant group might obtain and detonate a nuclear weapon. Suskind believes that it is not a matter of if but of when. Citing three dozen significant attempts to traffic in uranium from arsenals and weapons factories since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Suskind maintains that the George W. Bush administration's attempts to counter the nuclear threat have been disorganized and unfocused. He believes the White House has made the problem of terrorism worse rather than better through incompetence, inaction, and adherence to an essentially ideologically driven agenda. The book describes how the White House was so clueless about what it was facing that President Bush asked five years after 9/11, "How real is this nuclear terrorism thing?" The book concludes that the damage done by the Bush White House is reversible if the United States and other friendly governments work together to seize the high ground and return to "established moral standards" in the struggle against terror, restoring due process and fairness to win the hearts and minds that together will put an end to the threat of terrorism. Suskind's message is that people of good will around the world can be won over and united if presented with the right kind of leaders who will restore moral values rather than engage in intimidation through threats of retribution and violence.

Along the way, Suskind reveals that the White House made some very bad decisions while at the same time cooking and rewriting intelligence to support its agenda. Suskind identifies two well-placed Iraqi sources—foreign minister Naji Sabri and intelligence chief Tahir Jalil Habbush—who, in the lead-up to the Iraq war, provided solid information that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Their reports contradicting the White House view were either discounted or rewritten to change their conclusions. These allegations by Suskind have been partially confirmed by other sources, including former Central Intelligence Agency Chief of European Division Tyler Drumheller. Suskind also, inter alia, provides a great deal of unique inside information on CIA personalities and operations starting in the late 1990s, much of which appears to be completely reliable and obviously derives from the senior agency officers whom he interviewed.

One of the more curious tales that weaves its way through the book is the Armageddon Test, a plan to mount a major intelligence operation to infiltrate the world's uranium black market by purchasing uranium, smuggling it into the United States, and eventually constructing a crude nuclear device. The plan's objective was to identify the operatives involved in uranium smuggling and marketing and to demonstrate to politicians and the public just how easy it would be to construct a nuclear weapon and place it in the hands of terrorists. The proposed operation, which might reasonably be described as harebrained or...