Things didn't work out as al Qaeda hoped the morning of September 11, 2001:
9/11 also drew attention to al-Qaida and brought it support, but not in the way that bin Laden expected. He thought that many or most Muslims would rally to al-Qaida’s cause. Instead, most Muslims have been repulsed by the movement’s extremism and violence, even if they share its preference for an Islamic resurgence. Most of the recruits that al-Qaida has attracted are angry losers on the periphery of society, rather than the Islamic world’s best and brightest. And 9/11 did not weaken American national will but instead amplified it far beyond what bin Laden and his henchmen expected.
On this point, then, al-Qaida’s strategy has failed, undone by paralyzing misperceptions and flawed assumptions. The global revolution it sought to engineer is a bust. It can kill and survive but do little beyond that. America’s homeland security and counterterrorism capabilities are immensely greater than they were before hijacked passenger jets were flown into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and they likely will keep al-Qaida on the run and in perpetual fear. The “caliphate” bin Laden dreamed of remains elusive and probably impossible.
Yeah, al Qaeda lost their home in Afghanistan and lost a friend in Iraq, eventually losing their home in the Islamic State spanning Syria and Iraq.
The author also thinks the expense of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was a mistake, but I disagree. Our debt increased from almost $6 trillion in 2001 to over $20 trillion in 2017. The author cites the costs of those two campaigns as $2.8 trillion. Which means the costs of those wars in that time was almost 20% of the total increase (about $14.4 trillion) in debt. The war to protect us hasn't broken the bank.
And don't forget what we've gotten from that. Two countries allied with us who kill jihadis every day at a high cost to their own countries' lives with a relatively small American military footprint. I've mentioned that overlooked fact regarding Iraq but it is true for Afghanistan, too.
And despite wondering if we have the patience to win, we have been fighting in Afghanistan for 17 years and we have been fighting in, around, or over Iraq off and on since 1990.
And that's on top of winning the 40-year Cold War. I really think we're under-estimated patience-wise.
Yet jihadis continue to kill and recruit. The war isn't over. We haven't won.
The problem is that our so-far successful military effort is just a holding action to protect the West from collateral damage and enable friendly Moslems who must win the war.
Real victory has to come from the Islamic world to win what is really not a war on terror but an Islamic civil war over who gets to define Islam, jihadis or reformers.
I'm hoping that in retrospect, despite the continuing death toll caused by jihadis, historians will look at 2017 as basically the end of the jihadi interregnum.
But that can't happen, as the author rightly notes, if we grow tired of fighting our portion of the war--and fail to make greater efforts to help the moderates win the Islamic civil war.
UPDATE: If the question of whether the moderates can win is asked, we need to do more to help those moderates:
“The time of divisive politics of older Islamists is over, and everyone in my generation agrees,” says the 30-something Faroukh. “The era of political Islam is dead.”
Faroukh is symbolic of a shift sweeping through parts of the Arab world. From Tunisia to Egypt to Jordan, many Islamist activists and some established Islamic organizations are adopting a more progressive and moderate tone in their approach to politics and governing.
Let's do more than hope this is the trend that will win.
UPDATE: More on Afghanistan, where the Taliban are evolving from jihad to drug gang mercenaries; and where the jihadis are abandoning the Taliban to go to the ISIL groups.
