My current obsession

I finished The Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright, an excellent history of Al Qaeda and of the American efforts to prevent the inevitable attack on the United States.  Beginning with Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian, executed by Nasser, who is one of the founding fathers of the modern radical Islam the book quickly establishes the link between Qutb and Osama bin Laden.  Mr. Wright interweaves the stories of Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, who was to become A Qaeda's second in command, with that of John O'Neill, the FBI's counterterrorism chief, whose campaign to stop Bin Laden ended when he was killed in the World Trade Center attack.

Since I am now in an obsession with the Middle East I think I am going to attack Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. 

Class tomorrow is about Iran, which is not an Arab country, but I didn't set the class curriculum, and Iran is a major player in the Middle East.