When the previous administration was in power, the United States could be expected to behave a certain way with respect to the War on Terror: stubbornly. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, leading to the uprooting of Al Qaeda, destruction of Hussein’s dictatorial regime, and keeping America safe while at the same time giving more moderate Muslims another excuse to hate us and having us follow a bad strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. When dealing with fanatics, it is necessary to have the resolve to fight. Al Qaeda could do nothing but hope that we would withdraw prematurely or hope that some sociopaths would carry out an attack in the West while calling themselves Al Qaeda. In general, the United States kept Al Qaeda on the defense, albeit not in an ideal fashion.

Enter the new administration. While we are still engaged in wars abroad, the intensity in Iraq has gone down and the tone in Afghanistan has changed. Al Qaeda leadership, in all probability, has decided that dealing with the Obama administration will be easier than dealing with the intransigent Bush administration. By looking at Obama’s proposed policies and reasons behind them, such as his plans to withdraw from Iraq because “it is a distraction,” or change our language with respect to the war on terror, it is abundantly clear to our enemies that this administration is more mindful of “how something looks” and of casualties. This means that, while they survive, our enemies will adopt a strategy that exploits this new reality, a new reality that some would call a weakness. Lucky for them (unlucky for us), terrorists have long used terror as a political tool rather than a military tool. Since Bush forced them to use it as a military tool, they have been unsuccessful; with Obama insistence on dialogue instead of conflict, they hope to go back to doing the thing they do best: sucker punches to make a point.

Terrorists view their terror attacks as a conditioning of the behavior of the target population. Many terror attacks come followed by some sort of terror group list of reasons for the attacks and with some demands. The demands of terrorists do not always come about, but the intention is not necessarily to score a win immediately, instead they aim to condition the enemy. Rewind back to 2004, when Spain was the victim of an Al Qaeda attack on March 11 and 191 people were killed. Did this condition the Spanish government? Yes sir, because shortly thereafter the Spanish withdraw their troops from Iraq. Fast-forward to 2009, when Pakistan invaded the Swat valley where Al Qaeda and the Taliban were holed up, a terror campaign swept the country in retaliation. Did this condition the Pakistani government? You betcha, because when the United States asked for help against the Haqqani Network in northern Pakistan, the Pakistani government refused. So when the United States and Yemen started cooperating more closely over Al Qaeda, they sent a lone Nigerian kid to take down a passenger plane, which he failed to do. Their aim is simply to condition the administration, saying without words “if you stop helping Yemen, we’ll stop sending terrorists.” The reality is that the spectacular attacks favored by old-school Al Qaeda are no longer possible because they have been weakened by war and now they are willing to engage in low level terror, because they have no choice. While spectacular attacks are out of the question, low level attacks will do two things: not pose a significant threat politically to the administration (keeping a condition-able leader in power) while simultaneously conditioning their behavior. Will Obama be conditioned by terror any more than he already has been? That is the question that both Americans and Al Qaeda are asking… the former are hoping that he won’t be… the latter truly believe that he will be.

-AG