Michael Scheuer

Michael Scheuer spent twenty-two years in the CIA and is the author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism (Potomac Books, 2004) and Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of the United States (Potomac Books, 2002). His latest book is Osama Bin Laden (Oxford University Press, February 2011).

Essays

Security

The Zawahiri Era

| 08.24.11

Meet Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor-turned-jihadist-mastermind—and the new head of al-Qaeda. He will out-terrorize his predecessor. Prepare for the new age of jihad.

Security

Courting Catastrophe: America Five Years After 9/11

| 09.01.06

America will be attacked by Al-Qaeda again, and more destructively than on 9/11.

Commentary

Politics

Soft Despotism and the Leaky State

| 06.26.12

Recent unauthorized intelligence disclosures reveal our elected aristocracy's intolerable lawlessness.

Security

The Consequences of Defeat Iraq and Afghanistan

| 09.15.11

Misleading justifications and face-saving rhetoric to the contrary, the U.S. has lost two major wars. Jihadists everywhere have won.

Politics

U.S. Policy in the Levant: Islamism for Syria, Ruin for Israel

| 04.11.11

Bashar al-Assad's grip on power is increasingly tenuous. But if he goes, will he take Israel down with him?

Society

The Sum of All Fears

| 03.17.11

It may be in tiny Bahrain where Washington pays the piper for 35 years of intervention in the Arab world.

Society

Bin Laden Does a Happy Dance

| 02.14.11

America is too quick to celebrate the coming of democracy. Egypt will quickly move toward the will of the people—Islam.