By W. Thomas Smith, Jr. (more by this author)Is Al Qaeda in its death throes? Hardly, say terrorism experts: The Al Qaeda network has been temporarily weakened on a few fronts, to be sure, but it is far from defeated.
Nevertheless, the authors of a recent spate of end-of-terror essays would have us believe otherwise. Paul Cruickshank writing for the New York Daily News, even goes so far as to suggest that the likelihood of "terror returning to New York’s streets" may be "significantly lower" within a few years.
We all hope so. But the prediction, some say, is either wishful thinking or perhaps a bit of politics.
The essays -- written by Cruickshank and his compatriots Peter Bergen, Lawrence Wright, and others -- come on the heels of CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden’s recent statements that "Al Qaeda is on the verge of a strategic defeat in Iraq," and suggesting (though in broad, cautious terms) that the international terrorist network is suffering setbacks elsewhere in the world.
Al Qaeda is suffering numerous setbacks on specific fronts -- like Iraq and Saudi Arabia -- and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the network’s human brutality factor (terror-weary Muslims have suffered at the hands of Al Qaeda as much as non-Muslims) and the fact that U.S. and allied counterterrorism forces have beaten the enemy senseless on a number of sub-fronts. Rarely will we ever hear of those operations because those forces, of necessity, do their jobs in secret. [more...]
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