In Mary Anne Weaver’s information-rich essay about the early years that lead to the spectacular rise and equally spectacular fall of the former video-store clerk known to billions around world as Zarqawi, you will find this remarkable passage:

“If you want to understand who Zarqawi is,” a former Jordanian intelligence official had told me earlier, “you’ve got to understand the four major turning points in his life: his first trip to Afghanistan [in 1989]; then the prison years [from 1993 to 1999]; then his return to Afghanistan, when he really came into his own; and then Iraq.” He thought for a moment. “And, of course, the creativity of the Americans.”