Two Years Later, Is Terror Still Spreading?

Two years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, most Americans are probably uncertain about the simplest of questions: Are we winning or losing the war on terror?

There is the encouraging fact that no major attack has been carried out on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001. The captures of such top Al Qaeda operatives as Abu Zubeida and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as well as the leader of the Southeast Asian Jemaah Islamiah known as Hambali, represent peaks in an intelligence campaign that has been far more successful than anyone could have predicted on Sept. 12 two years ago.

President Bush recently claimed that two-thirds of Al Qaeda’s senior leaders have been captured or killed, making it clear that the international jihadist network has suffered serious setbacks and that its capabilities have been degraded.

At the same time, the last two years have witnessed an unprecedented wave of terrorism outside the United States, including attacks in Bali, Moscow, Mombasa and Riyadh, to name only a few of the most lethal strikes.

Not even Hezbollah, at the height of its activity in 1982-83, rivaled this level of killing.

Although responsibility for the bombings of the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad and the Shiite shrine at Najaf remains undetermined, jihadists are known to be infiltrating Iraq in significant numbers and could well have played a part. If they have not yet taken part in attacks, they will.

Perhaps most worrisome for the long term, Osama bin Laden’s ideology continues to spread among most of the world’s major Muslim populations even if his organization has lost strength.

Clerics who could once be counted on as moderates feel the debate shifting away from them, and they are tacking to the extremes to maintain some hold on their audience. For example, the sheik of Al Azhar University in Cairo, the preeminent seat of Islamic learning, has issued statements about the American. actions in Iraq that are so strident they nearly echo the jihadists’ rhetoric.

Moreover, as polling -- including the comprehensive survey released by the Pew Research Center in June -- demonstrates, the war in Iraq has severely damaged the already poor American image in the Islamic world, and more Muslims are thinking in the terms of the jihadists.

Despite our claims to be liberators, they see the U.S. as the enemy of Islam, eager to destroy the faith and subjugate its people. Such radicalization is not confined to Muslim countries; it is also growing, for example, among the large Muslim communities in the nations of Europe.

Given this mixture of tactical success and strategic slippage, one can hazard a few predictions:

* As long as there are American troops in Iraq, they will be a target of violence in what will be a central theater of the radical Islamist struggle.

* The United States may have bought itself some time before the next round of major violent attacks. But no one should be fooled into thinking that radicals’ increased focus on Iraq or the success of intelligence operations against Al Qaeda leadership provides perfect insurance against attacks on American soil, including those with weapons of mass destruction.

Al Qaeda has shown an extraordinary ability to vary its tactics.

* An overarching trend toward “relocalization” of the jihadist cause could be taking shape.

Islamist groups in numerous countries that have until now had little or no connection with Al Qaeda may be adopting its beliefs and mimicking its tactics. The May suicide-bombing attacks in Casablanca, which were carried out by just such a group, possibly with some financial and logistical support from Al Qaeda, may be a harbinger.

* The mimicry of Al Qaeda could eventually result in a second, more violent wave of attacks in several years. Even if nine out of 10 new jihadist groups are poor at carrying out attacks, the remainder may be even more technically sophisticated than Al Qaeda. The possibility that well-educated European or American radicals will join the extremists’ cause in numbers makes this especially worrisome.

Why the divergence between current successes and long-term dangers? The key reason is the refusal of the Bush administration to recognize that we face not only a capable terrorist organization but a potent ideology that is gaining ground -- one that explains to ordinary individuals why their lives seem bereft of hope.

Even if there is a hiatus from the worst violence because of successful intelligence and law enforcement work, those tools cannot hold back the tide of ideas. For that, we need a foreign policy that addresses the issues that are driving Muslims into radical anti-Americanism.

Such a policy would focus on promoting democracy (albeit in a measured way that will not precipitate unwanted revolutions); economic liberalization; building viable educational systems; and a sustained effort to move Israelis and Palestinians toward peace.

It still has not been sufficiently understood in Washington that what goes on within the borders of Muslim countries is now a matter of the deepest national security interest and that those countries that have been incubators of radicalism cannot remain so.

Authoritarianism, economic stagnation and broken schools are not the direct motivation for jihadist violence, nor do they in any way excuse it. But they are enduring aspects of life for hundreds of millions of people who are increasingly embracing a hatred-filled version of Islam.

If we want to stop that flow of people into the jihadist camp, we will have to address these facts.