It's not just war against "terror," but against violent, Muslim extremism.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFosama bin laden 88(photo credit: )Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.
- President George W. Bush, in his first public remarks after the 9/11 attacks, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, Sept. 11, 2001
Today marks the seventh anniversary of al-Qaida's sneak attack against the United States.
Over the years, America has managed to kill or capture many of the organization's key figures, but Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri "continue to maintain al-Qaida unity and its focus on their strategic vision and operational priorities," according to Ted Gistaro, the US government's top al-Qaida watcher.
How did Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri manage not only to avoid retribution but to rebuild al-Qaida? Part of the answer: The Bush administration became distracted.
In October 2001, the US struck at al-Qaida training camps and Taliban military installations. Within a month, the Taliban were in flight and Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri lost their protectors. US forces cornered them in the battle of Tora Bora; but somehow they escaped toward the nearby Afghanistan-Pakistan border where, around December 10, they found sanctuary.
The view in Washington was that the two men were either dead or hiding scared, and no longer a threat.
The Bush administration, meantime, had become increasingly convinced that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction and that there was a relationship between him and al-Qaida. So in March 2003, America invaded Iraq - hoping, in addition, to spread democracy.
No weapons of mass destruction were unearthed, however; and the 9/11 Commission Report asserted there was no collaborative relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi aligned his Iraqi jihadists with al-Qaida only in July 2005: In other words, the war began before "al-Qaida" arrived on the scene. Only the future will tell whether Iraq will evolve into the Arab world's first pro-Western democracy.
As the war dragged on, al-Qaida continued to export terrorism. Authorities suspect that the July 7, 2005 London bombings - three trains and a bus - in which at least 52 were killed and 700 injured, was al-Qaida's handiwork and not that of disaffected British Muslims acting on their own initiative. The same holds true for other plots, including the August 2006 conspiracy to blow up airliners en route to North America.
Bush's pledge to hunt down the 9/11 perpetrators thus went partly unfulfilled because America became sidetracked in Iraq. "Officials with the CIA and the US military said they began shifting resources out of Afghanistan [to Iraq] in 'early 2002 and still haven't recovered from that mistake,'" the Washington Post reported yesterday.
AL-QAIDA, along with the Taliban in which it incubates, has been rejuvenated. What to do?
Let's bear in mind what al-Qaida is, and isn't.
This is a small organization that specializes in terrorist attacks of staggering scope. It's a sort of venture-capital outfit for anti-civilian warfare; and perhaps the paramount Islamist think-tank. It's the home of the motivating icons of the Islamist struggle, Bin-Laden and al-Zawahiri.
Al-Qaida is not a synonym for every Islamist menace. It is not Iran (with which it has a multitude of theological and political differences); nor is it Hizbullah or Hamas. Conflating Islamist threats undermines our ability to confront each unique danger as needed.
The war against Western civilization is real, but the enemy is not a conveniently homogeneous body. Putting al-Qaida out of commission will not achieve victory against a metastasized Islamist threat.
Seven years on, the good news, according to the US Department of Homeland Security, is that America does not face imminent attack. Still, many analysts are concerned that al-Qaida will strike again on or around Election Day, November 4.
But the true nightmare scenario prognosticates that al-Qaida's terror-masters are devoting their efforts to obtaining a nuclear device; one that would be detonated in New York or Washington, perhaps, with results too ghastly to contemplate.
On this meaningful day, let us recall that the West is engaged in a war not against "terror," but against violent, expansionist Muslim extremism. The prospect of the forces of enlightenment prevailing will be immeasurably enhanced if the heteromorphic essence of the enemy is understood - and if that enemy is confronted judiciously, and with perseverance.
