Joby Warrick | Two-Time Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize | Author of "The Jackal"

Joby Warrick returns to Clearer Than Truth to discuss his new book, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos the World's First Super-Terrorist. A two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The Washington Post, Warrick has spent decades reporting on terrorism, intelligence failures, and the conflicts shaping the modern Middle East. This time, he goes back to the 1970s to examine the extraordinary career of Carlos the Jackal and what his story can tell us about terrorism today.
Carlos was more than a terrorist for hire. Warrick describes him as a remarkably flexible figure who moved between Palestinian militant organizations, communist governments, intelligence networks, dictators, and eventually anyone willing to employ him. His ideology was often secondary to his ambition, ego, and desire to become a revolutionary celebrity. But his greatest innovation was understanding the power of spectacle. The early terrorist groups around Carlos realized that attacks far from the battlefield could force television cameras, governments, and the public to pay attention to a cause.

Warrick traces how those tactics evolved through the 1970s and eventually influenced later terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda. The conversation also examines the OPEC siege, Carlos's relationships with state sponsors, the conditions that allow terrorist movements to emerge, and the danger of creating new generations of extremists through war, instability, and political collapse.
The conversation ultimately moves from history to the present. Warrick warns that the combination of weapons of mass destruction and artificial intelligence could create new opportunities for terrorist organizations, while the deterioration of international cooperation may make it harder for states to contain them. Carlos the Jackal may belong to another era, but the methods he helped pioneer, particularly the use of spectacle, proxies, and permissive environments, remain relevant.

00:00 Joby Warrick on Carlos the Jackal
00:53 Why Go Back to Carlos Now?
02:30 What Actually Drove Carlos?
04:47 Carlos the Jackal and Today's Terrorists
06:23 The Rise of Proxy Terrorism
07:43 How Terrorism Became a Global Spectacle
09:16 Why Terrorists Wanted the Cameras
10:03 The International Terrorism Network of the 1970s
11:44 The Shift From Secular to Religious Terrorism
12:11 The OPEC Siege: Carlos's Most Audacious Attack
14:01 Gaddafi and the OPEC Plot
15:35 Why Gaddafi Abandoned Carlos
16:20 Are Terrorists Products of Failed States?
17:33 Why Carlos Became a Legend
18:16 How Dangerous Was Carlos Really?
19:21 The Incredible Mistakes of Carlos the Jackal
20:00 Why States Keep Getting Terrorism Wrong
20:46 The Conditions That Produce Terrorism
22:18 Are We Creating the Next Generation of Terrorists?
24:10 The Threat of AI and Weapons of Mass Destruction
25:47 What Made Carlos Different?
27:10 Why Carlos Needed to See Himself as a Hero
28:20 How Carlos Was Finally Captured
30:54 What al-Qaeda Learned From Carlos
32:59 Did Carlos Ever Regret What He Did?
34:22 The One Thing Carlos Regretted
35:00 How Many People Did Carlos Really Kill?
36:26 Could a Weaker World Order Bring More Terrorism?
37:07 The Decline of International Cooperation
38:22 How Carlos Wants to Be Remembered
39:28 Closing Thoughts
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