Luc Debieuvre is a French banker who between 2003 and 2005 wrote a fortnightly opinion column for the United Arab Emirate-based English-language daily Gulf News. The period of Debieuvre’s association with the newspaper has been among the most significant and memorable in recent history.

The aftermath of America’s War on Terror has unleashed forces that the world will have to contend with and endure long after the protagonists have left the stage. Now collated into book form for the first time, Debieuvre’s chronicles provide a fascinating insight into how the shifting sands of international relations and Middle Eastern politics were perceived at the time by a writer with a uniquely Gallic perspective.