With respect to the US the minimum strategic goal of each and all of the al-Qaeda clones is identical with that of Osama bin Laden. The goal is to deter the US from any military presence in Arab Muslim states as well as continuation of its diplomatic, economic and military support of Israel. The goal is to force the US to stop doing that which it has been doing.
In a larger way the strategic hope is that by deterring the US from continuing policies of many decades standing they will accomplish the same with other Western actors. The US must remain the main focus since even when a terror attack may have a desirable impact from the perspective of its authors as was the presumed linkage between the Madrid bombings and the subsequent election, the results were too narrow track to be even slightly satisfactory. It mattered not if Spain kept troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq or withdrew them ASAP.
Substantially the hope of the Glorious Martyrdom Wannabes and those who offer religious comfort, political motivation and technical preparation is identical with those who once believed that hanging pickpockets would deter the pickpockets busily picking pockets in the crowd around the gallows. That didn't work. Neither will al-Qaeda and its ilk.
Here is why, bucko.
Deterrence works only in those rare occasions where it is mutual, based on a truly existential threat and the decision makers on both sides are not only rational actors but share the same calculus of rationality. Deterrence is assured if, in addition to the foregoing, both deterred actors have alternatives by which to pursue their respective policy goals below the deterred level of conduct.
It doesn't take a lot of thinking to remind oneself as to the one long time deterrence worked. Right on, bucko, the mutually assured destruction period of the Cold War.
Since the dynamic of the relationship between al-Qaeda or the rest of the Islamist jihadist groups and the US meets none of the tests of functional deterrence, they are doomed to fail in achieving their policy ends, no matter how minimally defined. The US is not going to cut and run from its obligations either in Arab Muslim states or regarding Israel.
So, all the bad guys can hope for is a species of self-inflicted defeat on our part. The worst part of this thesis is that it is not too much to hope for. The self-inflicted defeat option is a realistic one.
There are several reasons to justify this gloomy conclusion.
One is the misuse of US military power in both Afghanistan and Iraq. While both situations have changed for the better, the net effect on We the People has been negative. We have little stomach for more military engagements with Islamist adversaries.
The second reason is the economy. Thanks to a series of world class blunders on the part of three administrations (Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama) the US has a foreign funded deficit which severely crimps our capacity for independent action on the global stage. This situation will only worsen in the near to mid-term without major changes in D.C.
Thirdly one must not underestimate the impact of the post-modernist, multi-cultural oriented, blame-America-first, pity-the-poor-and-alienated portions of the American elite. Their influence in politics, the media, and academia is significant and growing. These "useful idiots," to use Lenin's phrase, can do much to sap American political will and internal confidence. They are the Islamists' Fifth Column.
Finally, as David Brooks noted in an op-ed piece in the NYT, We the People are not the same today as were our predecessors of fifty or seventy-five years ago. We want perfect outcomes and demand that the central government and the tools of the bureaucratic state provide such all the time. We are no longer willing to acknowledge that perfection is not possible in the real world, and we will not be held harmless from all those many things that go bump in the dark.
For people of this mentality surrender is an option--provided it is not termed as such. As long as we can hide behind the positive such as declaiming faith in "the international community" we can wave a carefully concealed white flag.
It is appealing and true to say, "We aren't the world's policeman." Or, "Israel has too much power over our domestic politics." Or, "If we pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and so on, the Islamists will leave us alone." Or, even, "Get rid of poverty in Yemen, Somalia or wherever and there will be no more willing martyrs."
All true--at least in part. All dangerously wrong--at least in major part. But, convincing ways to put tie dyed colors on the universal flag of surrender.
The terror merchants of Islam cannot win. Not alone. They need us to do the heavy lifting.
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