From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Black Flags, the unknown story of America’s mission in Syria: to find and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons and keep them out of the hands of the Islamic State.
Warrick maintains a sense of proportion ... Overwhelmingly, Warrick’s emphasis is where it should be, on Assad, for whom chemical weapons were a highly developed and strategic program of terror ... Toxic-waste disposal is not, on its surface, the most promising subject matter for a nonfiction thriller, but Warrick presents it sharply and compellingly.
... engrossing ... This gripping investigation of the challenges of Middle East politics will engage informed general readers and foreign policy specialists.
... highly readable and well-sourced ... a bleak but real-life thriller ... some parts of this grim story are heartening ... The author draws helpfully on the memoirs of Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speech-writer, UN ambassador Samantha Power, and Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton.
