Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg, a communications strategist, writes a novel based around an attempt by suicide terrorists to crash a plane into the American president’s motorcade, which leads to the United States launching a preemptive war against Iraq, but the book’s publication will be delayed due to the similarity of the plot to the 9/11 attacks. [Washington Post, 12/23/2002; World, 10/25/2003; New York Times, 11/15/2003; Washington Times, 7/26/2005; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. x-xi] Rosenberg is president of November Communications, a consulting company he formed to help business and political leaders “discover, develop, and drive their message.” [Heritage Foundation, 12/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 36] He previously worked as research director for conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh, and as chief speechwriter and policy director for publisher and former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes. He has also advised Israeli politicians Benjamin Netanyahu and Natan Sharansky. [Daily Orange, 11/18/2002; New York Times, 11/15/2003; Washington Times, 7/26/2005]
Novel Is Almost Complete by 9/11 – Rosenberg starts writing his novel, called The Last Jihad, in January 2001. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix] He has never written a novel before or taken any classes in fiction writing. “I had barely even had time to read any fiction over the previous decade,” he will later comment. He had been thinking of getting out of politics, though, and decided to spend some time writing a political thriller. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 36-39] A literary agent reads the first three chapters of The Last Jihad in spring 2001 and, convinced he can get the book published, urges Rosenberg to finish it as soon as possible. On September 11, 2001, Rosenberg is about to start on the book’s second-to-last chapter. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix]
Author Is Influenced by Netanyahu’s Warnings about Terrorism – While trying to decide what his novel’s storyline should be, he will recall, Rosenberg had thought “about the warnings Netanyahu had given over the past several months—and over the past several decades—that state-sponsored Middle Eastern terrorists were not content to simply target Israel but would target the West as well, and particularly the United States” (see September 1995). He went on to ponder questions like, “What if radical Islamic terrorists pulled off a major attack inside the US, such as hijacking a plane and flying it into an American city?” “Wouldn’t an American president have to declare a war on terror that would target both the terrorists themselves and the states that sponsored them?” and, “Wouldn’t the president have to conclude that he could no longer in good conscience leave Saddam Hussein in power with the motive, means, and opportunity to equip anti-American terrorists with weapons of mass destruction?” This analysis led him to conceive the storyline for The Last Jihad. [Rosenberg, 2006, pp. 41-42]
Novel Features a 9/11-Style Attack Leading to a War with Iraq – The Last Jihad begins with radical Islamic terrorists attempting to crash a Gulfstream IV—a twin-jet aircraft, mainly for private or business use—packed with explosives into the presidential motorcade just outside Denver, Colorado. The Secret Service manages to bring the plane down with a Stinger missile, but the president is wounded. The CIA then traces the attack to Iraq. [Heritage Foundation, 12/2002; Washington Post, 12/23/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. ix, 1-18] The book’s final chapters are about the US launching a preemptive war against Iraq, to remove its leader, Saddam Hussein, from power. [World, 10/25/2003]
Author Temporarily Stops Writing His Book after 9/11 – Rosenberg will stop working on The Last Jihad after September 11, due to the similarities between its storyline and the 9/11 attacks. “No one wanted to read a novel that opened with a kamikaze attack against an American city,” he will comment. “It was no longer entertainment. It was too raw, too real.” The novel “almost felt that it had been written with 9/11 in mind, even though it hadn’t,” he will say. However, Rosenberg will resume work on it early in 2002, after Americans have recovered from the initial shock of 9/11 and when President Bush is contemplating launching a preemptive war against Iraq. The novel will require just a small number of minor modifications. For example, Rosenberg will set it a few years in the future and acknowledge in it that the 9/11 attacks have taken place. [Daily Orange, 11/18/2002; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. x-xi]
Novel Is an Instant Success – The Last Jihad will be published on November 23, 2002, and be an immediate success. It will spend 11 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and, by Christmas 2002, will have been reprinted nine times. In the first 60 days following its publication, Rosenberg will be interviewed on more than 160 radio and television talk shows. Interviewers will ask him questions like: “How could [you] possibly have written a book that seemed to foreshadow coming events so closely? Was it a fluke? Did [you] get lucky? Or was there something else going on?” [New York Times, 11/15/2003; Rosenberg, 2006, pp. xi-xii] Rosenberg will be called a “modern-day Nostradamus” by US News and World Report, due to his apparent ability to write books describing events in the Middle East before similar events actually play out. [Florida Times-Union, 12/20/2003; Topeka Capital-Journal, 9/6/2013] World magazine will note that on top of the similarities between the storyline of The Last Jihad and the 9/11 attacks, “Actual war [with Iraq] followed publication of the book”—which ends with the US going to war with Iraq—“by only a few months.” [World, 10/25/2003]