Barry Rubin: Ten Years After September 11: Who’s Really Winning the War On Terrorism

Ten Years After September 11: Who’s Really Winning the War On Terrorism

By Barry Rubin

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!”


–Francis Scott Key, “Star-Spangled Banner”

Ten years after September 11, 2001, when the very phrase “war on terrorism” is barred from U.S. government usage by the president, we are told that the United States has won or is already victorious. After all, there has been no major attack on U.S. soil in a decade and al-Qaeda is weaker, with many of its leaders, including Osama bin Laden, dead.

“Where is that band”? According to the official line, pretty much destroyed. We won, perhaps except for a few “lone wolves.” But before the victory parades are held, let’s understand this: The war on terrorism, like that phrase itself, has been largely defined out of existence, not won.

Let’s be clear. Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon to achieve several goals:


–To become the leader in a worldwide jihad.

–To persuade Muslims that America is weak and can be defeated.

–To stir far more Muslims to jihad, that is a Holy War that today can be defined as an Islamist revolution.

–To mobilize forces in order to challenge and eventually to overthrow all of the existing regimes in the Sunni Muslim areas, replacing Arab nationalism in many of those countries with Islamism as the main ideological force.

I would suggest that al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks largely succeeded in three of those four goals.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

Technorati Tag: 9/11 and Jihad and Terrorism.