A key advisor to President Bush recounts his political clashes with powerful administration figures when he questioned the choices of his predecessors about the way the war on terror was being conducted, in an account in which he cites historical parallels.

The surprising truth behind Barack Obama's decision to continue many of his predecessor's counterterrorism policies. Conventional wisdom holds that 9/11 sounded the death knell for presidential accountability. In fact, the opposite is true. The novel powers that our post-9/11 commanders in chief assumed—endless detentions, military commissions, state secrets, broad surveillance, and more—are the culmination of a two-century expansion of presidential authority. But these new powers have been met with thousands of barely visible legal and political constraints—enforced by congressional committees, government lawyers, courts, and the media—that have transformed our unprecedentedly powerful presidency into one that is also unprecedentedly accountable. These constraints are the key to understanding why Obama continued the Bush counterterrorism program, and in this light, the events of the last decade should be seen as a victory, not a failure, of American constitutional government. We have actually preserved the framers’ original idea of a balanced constitution, despite the vast increase in presidential power made necessary by this age of permanent emergency.

“Divulge[s] the details of top-level deliberations—details that were almost certainly known only to the administration’s inner circle” (The Wall Street Journal). When he was elected in 2008, Barack Obama had vowed to close Guantánamo, put an end to coercive interrogation and military tribunals, and restore American principles of justice. Yet by the end of his first term he had backtracked on each of these promises, ramping up the secret war of drone strikes and covert operations. Behind the scenes, wrenching debates between hawks and doves—those who would kill versus those who would capture—repeatedly tested the very core of the president’s identity, leading many to wonder whether he was at heart an idealist or a ruthless pragmatist. Digging deep into this period of recent history, investigative reporter Daniel Klaidman spoke to dozens of sources to piece together a riveting Washington story packed with revelations. As the president’s inner circle debated secret programs, new legal frontiers, and the disjuncture between principles and down-and-dirty politics, Obama vacillated, sometimes lashed out, and spoke in lofty tones while approving a mounting toll of assassinations and kinetic-war operations. Klaidman’s fly-on-the-wall reporting reveals who had his ear, how key national security decisions are really made, and whether or not President Obama lived up to the promise of candidate Obama. “Fascinating . . . Lays bare the human dimension of the wrenching national security decisions that have to be made.” —Tina Brown, NPR “An important book.” —Steve Coll, The New Yorker

A New York Times Critics’ Top Book of 2021 "An impressive combination of diligence and verve, deploying Ackerman’s deep stores of knowledge as a national security journalist to full effect. The result is a narrative of the last 20 years that is upsetting, discerning and brilliantly argued." —The New York Times "One of the most illuminating books to come out of the Trump era." —New York Magazine An examination of the profound impact that the War on Terror had in pushing American politics and society in an authoritarian direction For an entire generation, at home and abroad, the United States has waged an endless conflict known as the War on Terror. In addition to multiple ground wars, the era pioneered drone strikes and industrial-scale digital surveillance; weakened the rule of law through indefinite detentions; sanctioned torture; and manipulated the truth about it all. These conflicts have yielded neither peace nor victory, but they have transformed America. What began as the persecution of Muslims and immigrants has become a normalized feature of American politics and national security, expanding the possibilities for applying similar or worse measures against other targets at home, as the summer of 2020 showed. A politically divided and economically destabilized country turned the War on Terror into a cultural—and then a tribal—struggle. It began on the ideological frontiers of the Republican Party before expanding to conquer the GOP, often with the acquiescence of the Democratic Party. Today’s nativist resurgence walked through a door opened by the 9/11 era. And that door remains open. Reign of Terror shows how these developments created an opportunity for American authoritarianism and gave rise to Donald Trump. It shows that Barack Obama squandered an opportunity to dismantle the War on Terror after killing Osama bin Laden. By the end of his tenure, the war had metastasized into a bitter, broader cultural struggle in search of a demagogue like Trump to lead it. Reign of Terror is a pathbreaking and definitive union of journalism and intellectual history with the power to transform how America understands its national security policies and their catastrophic impact on civic life.

This provocative book contends that George W. Bush has been treated unfairly, especially by presidential historians and the media. Argues that from the beginning scholars abandoned any pretense at objectivity in their critiques and seemed unwilling to place Bush's actions into a broader historical context.

A scathing critique of President Bush's legal advisors, who expanded the reach of his executive powers while creating highly controversial policies for fighting the War on Terror. Argues that these advisors, blinded by ideology, provided largely bad legal advice that caused great harm, and ultimately was unnecessary for national security.

The issue of the imperial presidency, which is raised in connection with the Bush administration's response to the legal issues flowing from the 9/11 attacks, is one that now resonates broadly across the American political landscape: not just with Democrats, but with Republicans too; and not just with lawyers, but with the American public generally. Are the legal powers of the President unlimited in cases of terrorist attacks on the United States? Do the courts and legislatures have a role to play? How relevant is the U.S. Constitution in these instances? These reports, compiled by the NYC Bar Association merit wider distribution. Thus, Silkenat and Shulman have brought them together to give readers a clearer sense of what the rule of law really means to Americans. As noted in a New York Times editorial in January 2006: Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by the president embarked on an ideological crusade Over the past few years, much lip service has been paid to the phrase rule of law. At the same time, the U.S. government has avoided basic rule of law principles by holding prisoners outside the law (off the books and out of Red Cross supervision, off shore or even on U.S. soil, but without due process or urgent matter that bears on the security of this country). In both volumes, learned practitioners and scholars argue in favor of adherence to time-tested principles. Each report has a preface that places the material in historical and legal context.