MAY 21, 2017
RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
EVENING
Donald Trump is uneasy.
The seventy-year-old American president stands at a massive lectern here at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center. His words echo in the cavernous hall as he speaks slowly, enunciating carefully. Chandeliers hang from the ceiling. A line of flags decorates the stage behind, each from a different Muslim nation as well as the United States, as befits this “Arab Islamic American Summit.” An audience numbering fifty Middle Eastern leaders reclines in large leather chairs as President Trump delivers a well-crafted message of peace. The president prefers to speak extemporaneously, but his remarks tonight are so important that he patiently sticks to the script, reading from a speech that required five drafts to perfect.*
“A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out.”
Since taking office four months ago yesterday, Mr. Trump has repeatedly attacked “radical Islamic terrorism.” He is advocating an “America First” foreign policy. Also, he has publicly stated that “defeating ISIS and other radical Islamic terror groups will be our highest priority.” Since his inauguration the president has kept the focus on ISIS, mentioning the terrorists in more than two dozen speeches. He has also put into place a travel ban, denying Muslims and other citizens from seven countries visas to enter the United States because of security reasons.*
So, there is no doubt that America’s allies in the Middle East are wary of both Trump’s rhetoric and his tendency to view many Muslims as terrorists. They are aware that Mr. Trump has openly criticized his predecessor, Barack Obama, for his reluctance to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” Mr. Trump sees that as weakness toward the jihad. The audience tonight also knows the president once stated, “I think Islam hates us.” For these reasons, Mr. Trump is moderating his words now, even calling Islam “one of the world’s greatest faiths.”
Now the president lashes out at ISIS, taking care to describe the group as a threat to everyone in the audience.
“DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship.
“DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities.
“DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and
“DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.”
The president is tall, six foot two, with a strong stage presence. His blond daughter, Ivanka, sits on the dais behind him in a lavender business suit, hands crossed on her lap, listening intently. Her husband, Jared Kushner, a presidential adviser, is seated by her side.
President Trump continues. “For our part, America is committed to adjusting our strategies to meet evolving threats and new facts.… Will we be indifferent in the presence of evil? Will we protect our citizens from its violent ideology? Will we let its venom spread through our societies? Will we let it destroy the most holy sites on earth? If we do not confront this deadly terror, we know what the future will bring—more suffering and despair. But if we act—if we leave this magnificent room unified and determined to do what it takes to destroy the terror that threatens the world—then there is no limit to the great future our citizens will have.”
The president knows he must emphasize unity with the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to two of its holiest sites—Mecca and Medina. Without the support of nations like Saudi Arabia, his battles with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani will be more difficult to win. In fact, Mr. Trump hopes the Muslim leaders in the audience will actively join the fight. He calls ISIS “foot soldiers of evil” and reminds the crowd that “if we do not stand in uniform condemnation of this killing, then we not only will be judged by our people, not only will we be judged by history, but we will be judged by God.”*
The president speaks for thirty-three minutes. Some in the audience are dressed in traditional Arab robes, while others are in business attire. Mr. Trump’s tendency toward bombast is nowhere to be seen as he speaks in a voice so measured that some in the crowd even yawn.
“God bless your countries,” he concludes. “And God bless the United States of America.”
The applause is polite but not enthusiastic. However, some notice an unusual thing: the words “radical Islamic terror” have not been mentioned.
Death is near.
It is 10:20 p.m. in the British Midlands, slightly more than twenty-four hours after President Trump’s speech in Saudi Arabia. American pop singer Ariana Grande finishes her concert encore in front of an adoring crowd. Her Dangerous Woman Tour is a big hit, and the massive Manchester Arena is packed with an audience of 14,200—a very large portion of them young teenage girls.
Mothers and fathers crowd into the large arena foyer known as the City Room, awaiting the end of the show, when they will pick up their daughters to drive them home. The outer area is spacious and open, with high ceilings, very much like the arrivals hall at a large airport. This is the most popular exit in the building, with many concertgoers leaving through the glass doors and heading straight across the courtyard to the local railway station.
The foyer is at the opposite end of the arena from the stage. Those wishing to beat the crowds rush out first, even before Ms. Grande’s final notes come to an end. Unknowingly, they pass a solitary man wearing black clothing and a hefty backpack. He has just come out of the toilet at the nearby train station, where he wired the bomb hidden within his pack, priming it for detonation. He leaves the stall just fifty-eight seconds before two British Transport Police officers conduct a security sweep of the lavatory.
But the mysterious man has not gone unnoticed. The solitary individual loitering in the lobby, making sure to sit in the blind spot of a security camera, has the appearance of being from North Africa or the Middle East. In fact, he is of Libyan ancestry. But no one questions the man “for fear of being branded a racist,” in the words of one eighteen-year-old arena security guard.
One concert hall staff member even approaches two Manchester police patrolling the lobby about the mystery man, but the officers are more concerned with a drunk female patron. The cops, the staff member will recall, “didn’t seem that interested” in the terror threat.
But there is concern. A local man named Neil Hatfield, whose four daughters are inside the show, is alarmed by the sight of the man in black protecting his large rucksack. “The bag,” Hatfield will later tell reporters, “was massive and it was solid … I thought suicide bomber, straight away, with very little doubt in my mind. Honestly, my heart was racing as soon as I saw him.”
But the Manchester police have left the foyer to direct traffic outside. Arena security guards are concerned with the crush of spectators who will fill the City Room just moments from now. Hatfield tries to get their attention, but watches helplessly as the man in black hoists the rucksack onto his shoulders and begins walking to the center of the room.
Another concerned father confronts the intruder. “What are you doing?” asks Christopher Wild, a Manchester local here to pick up his daughters.
“I’m waiting for somebody, mate,” comes the response. “Have you got the time?”
Noting the lack of police in the foyer, Hatfield and Wild continue to vigorously warn security guards, but are ignored.
Inside the arena, the music comes to an end. The time is 10:30. A next wave of the crowd passes into the foyer as the roar of applause dies down. Concertgoers still riding the adrenaline high of the loud, fast-paced show flood through the arena doors, eager to be on their way. Tonight is Monday, and morning brings work and school.
Soon, the foyer is filled.
At 10:31, the assassin presses his thumb down on the detonator.
Rather than just explosives, twenty-two-year-old Salman Ramadan Abedi has filled the blue Karrimor backpack with sharp pieces of metal. Once the bomb blows, this shrapnel flies through the air, maiming and killing in a manner no less lethal than an artillery shell exploding on a battlefield. The blast radius is sixty-six feet, a swath encompassing a third of the foyer. In an instant, twenty-two people are killed and a staggering eight hundred wounded. Sixty ambulances will be needed to shuttle victims to every available hospital. The youngest casualty is an eight-year-old girl who lives for an hour after traumatic injuries to her legs lead to an enormous loss of blood. “Am I going to die?” she asks a paramedic as an ambulance takes her to the hospital.
Many of the wounded and killed are not much older.
Among the dead is the bomber himself. Soon, British intelligence shares the name of Ramadan Abedi with its US counterparts, standard operating procedure in the global war on terror. The Brits want the information kept secret, so as not to alert possible terrorist cohorts. Abedi is known to have a long history of association with terror groups, beginning at the age of fifteen, including al-Qaeda and ISIS. Despite this, he successfully applied for a $3,000 student loan funded by British taxpayers, using the money to build his bomb.
But within hours, someone leaks the confidential information to the media. The New York Times immediately publishes it, along with photos of the bombing site. When criticized for doing that, the Times is unrepentant, claiming First Amendment privilege.
In response, Manchester police immediately cease sharing any information. British prime minister Theresa May publicly scolds President Trump over the leak. This unwittingly gives ISIS an advantage. The killers well know that if Britain and America cannot share information, the potential for terrorists to slip through the cracks is enormous.
Speaking from a NATO summit in Belgium, President Trump deflects the leak fiasco and speaks only of the “evil losers” who committed the Manchester bombing.
ISIS is quick to claim responsibility.
President Donald J. Trump is exhausted. It is Monday morning, one week after his speech in Saudi Arabia. Air Force One finally brought him back to America last night. He hits a button on the side of the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Almost instantly, a glass of Diet Coke with ice is brought to him—one of at least a dozen he will drink today. Mr. Trump has just received his daily intelligence briefing, which includes the latest information on ISIS. Secretary of Defense James Mattis spoke at the United States Military Academy’s graduation ceremonies over the weekend, reminding the newly minted second lieutenants that “we must never permit murderers to define our time or warp our sense of normal.”
Mattis, speaking for the Trump administration, followed up on those comments with an appearance on CBS News’s Face the Nation, stating that the US policy toward ISIS is no longer “attrition” but is now “annihilation.”
Despite traveling for ten days, President Trump quickly returns to his normal routine after arriving home. He stays up until 3:00 a.m., watching news shows and following Twitter. He sleeps in his own bedroom. He currently lives alone in the White House on the building’s upper floors, but his wife, Melania, and eleven-year-old son, Barron, are moving from New York City to Washington in two weeks. The president will continue sleeping alone, preferring they stay in separate rooms due to his fondness for late hours. When Mr. Trump is hungry, he picks up the phone and orders a burger from the White House kitchen—which is open twenty-four hours a day.
The president rises at about seven. He does not eat breakfast, nor does he drink coffee. By 10:00 a.m. he has gone downstairs from the residence to begin work in the Oval Office, where he receives his media and intelligence reports. At approximately 12:30, lunch is served. The president prefers shrimp salad and other comfort foods. He tends to eat very quickly. Then it’s back to the office for meetings until 4:30. Afterward, Mr. Trump returns phone calls until at least 7:00 p.m. The president abstains from alcohol, so there is no “happy hour” in the Trump White House.
It is this way almost every day and night. Donald Trump does not change his schedule unless he is traveling or stepping away for a round of golf.
Along with the economy and illegal immigration, fighting terror is a top priority for Donald Trump. The battle is personal for him. Shortly after the 9/11 attack in New York City, he was criticized for stating that a Wall Street property he owned had become the tallest building in Manhattan when the World Trade Center was destroyed. But that unguarded remark was forgotten when he toured the rubble two days later. Looking visibly upset, private citizen Trump told a reporter, “This is a terrible thing for the world.” Donald Trump personally knew people who were among the 2,606 killed in the World Trade Center collapse. Thus, emotion often drove his public statements about radical Islamic terrorism.
During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said there were “thousands” of Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attack. “I watched in Jersey City,” he claimed, “thousands upon thousands were cheering.” Subsequently, in a TV interview with Bill O’Reilly, the journalist challenged that statement.
“No videotape of thousands of people celebrating,” O’Reilly told candidate Trump in a December 3, 2015, interview. “It doesn’t exist. And we really looked everywhere. I mean, it’s just not there.”
“You don’t know that there weren’t, Bill,” Trump shot back.
“I was here. I was reporting. And believe me, if there were thousands, it would have been reported,” O’Reilly said.
“This article says that they were ‘swarming.’ Bill, this article says they were swarming all over the place. So, I don’t know what that means, but it means a lot of people,” Trump argued.*
“There were some people, not thousands,” replied O’Reilly.
“You don’t know that, Bill. Bill, you don’t know that. Bill, you don’t know that,” Trump stated.
O’Reilly concluded the discussion: “As a man who wants the most powerful position in the world, you’ve got to kind of be careful in those speeches.”
It is a lesson Donald Trump would take seriously while speaking in Saudi Arabia but would ignore in other venues.
Seven days after Trump takes office on January 20, 2017, he signs Executive Order 13769, which restricts citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States for ninety days.‡ The order also cuts back acceptance of Muslim refugees seeking asylum. Immediately, the press accuses the president of being “anti-Muslim.” He does not care. The new president is a man who bridles at criticism but does not change because of it. In his mind, the Muslim world is basically hostile to American interests. Mr. Trump is from the “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” school of diplomacy. Simply put, he is deeply suspicious of and sometimes hostile to the Muslim world.**
It is evening on June 4, 2017. The past two weeks have seen the Trump presidency almost completely focused on the war on terror: the speech in Riyadh, the Manchester bombing, the president’s decision to taunt Middle Eastern terrorists by moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and now yet another vehicle ramming in London two days ago.
This time, three jihadis in a van ran over pedestrians on London Bridge, then crashed their vehicle on the south bank of the Thames; fleeing into a crowded marketplace, they begin stabbing innocent shoppers. Before London police shot them dead, the three followers of ISIS murdered eight people and injured forty-six others.
Now President Trump stands on the stage at Washington’s Ford’s Theatre. Another president, Abraham Lincoln, was murdered here in 1865, the victim of an act of terror. The box in which he was shot looks down on the stage as Mr. Trump begins to speak. He wears a tuxedo and stands behind a podium bearing the presidential seal, his wife, Melania, standing to his left. He has recently renewed his Twitter attacks against London mayor Sadiq Khan in the aftermath of the London Bridge attack, driving a deeper wedge between Britain and America.
But now Donald Trump not only makes it clear that he stands with Britain in this difficult time but publicly states that he is fed up. The time has come to declare all-out war on ISIS.
“America sends our thoughts and prayers and our deepest sympathies to the victims of this evil slaughter and we renew our resolve, stronger than ever before, to protect the United States and its allies from a vile enemy that has waged war on innocent life, and it’s gone on too long,” the president states.
“This bloodshed must end. This bloodshed will end.”
But not immediately.