As President Clinton and his military commanders were at Andrews Air Force base last week, to receive the bodies of the Americans killed in the embassy bombings in Africa, they were already planning retaliation.
The main culprit had already been singled out. He was the wealthy Saudi businessman turned terrorist, Mr Osama bin Laden, who was running his networks from Afghanistan, apparently with the connivance of the fundamentalist Taliban regime which controls most of the country.
On Wednesday of last week the President, who was preparing for his testimony to the grand jury in five days time, was told by US intelligence it had definite proof that Mr bin Laden was the leading figure behind the bombings of the embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
By last Friday President Clinton had given the go-ahead for military strikes against the terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a chemicals plant in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, which the Americans claim manufactures the precursors for VX nerve gas which Mr bin Laden was hoping to acquire.
The FBI investigation of the embassy bombings which killed 247 people, including 12 Americans, and injured about 5,000, had a lucky break when police in Pakistan arrested a Palestinian called Mohammed Saddiq How aida after he arrived on a flight from Nairobi on the day of the bombing.
Under interrogation Mr How aida reportedly told the Pakistani police that he had helped to plan the bombings - and he also claimed that the bombings were sponsored by Mr bin Laden. Then he was returned to Kenya and turned over to the FBI and the Kenyan authorities for further questioning.
The timing of the US military strikes against the terrorist camps and the Khartoum factory has inevitably raised questions about whether President Clinton has used these dramatic actions to distract attention from his own difficult situation, following his admission of a sexual affair with a former White House intern, Ms Monica Lewinsky.
One journalist bluntly put the question to the Secretary of Defence, Mr William Cohen, at a Pentagon press conference. He asked him if this was a "Wag the Dog" scenario taken from the satirical film where a US president caught up in a sex scandal is advised by his handlers to launch a military strike against Albania to distract the public.
Mr Cohen who was probably expecting such a question insisted that "the only motivation" for the strikes was "our absolute obligation" to protect American lives". The President as commander-inchief had to give the final authorisation for the strikes, Mr Cohen added.
Certainly there has been a dramatic turnabout at Martha's Vineyard, where the President was on vacation and trying to do some "repair work", to use his press secretary's phrase, on his marriage following his admission of his "improper relationship" with Ms Lewinsky.
Suddenly Mr Clinton appeared before the press, who were dogging his movements on the day Ms Lewinsky was testifying for the second time to the grand jury, to announce the military strikes and that he was flying back to Washington to confer with his security staff. Ms Lewinsky was off the front page. The US was back in military mode and the commander-in-chief was in control.
Later Mr Clinton made his second White House address to the nation in four days - but this time to give details of the military action and not to confess to doing "wrong".
Inevitably there will be some cynical reactions at home and abroad to the timing of the US strikes, just as Mr Clinton is struggling with a widespread negative reaction to his admission of an affair with Ms Lewinsky. But the fact remains that the Islamic terrorist group which claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings and the group associated with Mr bin Osama published fresh threats this week in the London-based Arabic newspaper, Al-Hayat.
The Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Shrines, which claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings, said it would "continue shipping more American dead bodies to their unjust government".
The World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, founded by Mr bin Laden, announced that "strikes will continue from everywhere".
Mr Clinton, in announcing yesterday's strikes, said the US had "compelling information" that the groups based in Afghanistan had a key role in the embassy bombings and "were planning additional terrorist attacks against our citizens with the inevitable collateral casualties we saw so tragically in Africa".
The Khartoum attack was justified, he said, because the groups were "seeking to acquire chemical weapons and other dangerous weapons".
President Clinton and senior officials emphasise that the strikes are not just retaliation for the embassy bombings but part of a pre-emptive strike to defend US citizens around the globe from terrorist attack.
There will certainly be strong support from the American public for the US strikes if it believes that those at the receiving end were responsible for the embassy bombings. There will be even more support if it can be shown that the terrorist groups were planning further attacks, especially with deadly chemical weapons which could be used in, say, US cities and transport systems, as happened in Tokyo three years ago.